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Fee Pietwreg 


BY 


BE^RLY CARRADINE 

AUTHOR OF 

A Church Yard Story; Pastoral Sketches; Remarkable 
Occurrences ; A Journey to Palestine; The Old 
Man; Heart Talks , Etc., Etc. 


THIRD EDITION 


THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO. 


151 Washington Street 


Chicago, JU. 





















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CONTENTS 


I. A Swamp Adventure. 7 

II. A Cabin Waif 28 

III. Why They Wept 49 

IV. A Fearful Retribution 63 

V. Mr. Brown and Mr. Braun 70 

VI. The Face at The Window 79 

VII. A Down Town Office 89 

VIII. Characters in Ebony 99 

IX. Wesley’s Magazine 113 

X. A Night Adventure 120 

XI. A Pastoral Round 130 

XII. The Household Prodigy 145 

XIII. The Man with The Problem 151 

XIV. The Discontented Man 159 

XV. A Trying Experience 170 

XVI. A Strange Visitor 184 

XVII. A Modern Double 193 

XVIII. Bitter Pills 201 

XIX. D D , 212 

XX. A Picture Gallery 229 

XXI. A Row of Portraits 242 

XXII. Old Jack 260 



















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PEN PICTURES, 


i. 

A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 

'pHE Yazoo Delta is located in the northwestern 
part of the State of Mississippi. Its natural 
boundary lines are the Mississippi River on the west, 
and the Yazoo, running in a northeasterly direction, 
on the east. Starting from a point below Vicksburg, 
and skirting the right bank of the Yazoo River 
are the Walnut Hills. Like the river, they go in a 
diagonal direction across the north-central part of 
the State. Between these hills and the Missis- 
sippi River, fifty to seventy-five miles to the west, 
stretches the famous Yazoo Swamp. At distances 
of ten and fifteen miles, and almost in parallel lines, 
a number of creeks and small rivers flow south- 
ward across this swamp country and empty into the 
Yazoo at different points above where it joins the 
Father of Waters. These smaller streams are Sil- 
ver Creek, Deer Creek, the Little Sunflower and 
Big Sunflower Rivers. The design, if traced on 
a piece of paper, would look somewhat like a harp, 

( 7 ) 


8 


PEN PICTURES. 


the Mississippi being the upright beam, the Yazoo 
the diverging column, and the streams just men- 
tioned the strings. 

On the banks of the four lesser streams are 
found many of the plantations which made the 
South famous. But after leaving these mile-wide 
cultivated strips the traveler would have to traverse 
a veritable jungle until he came to another creek, 
lake or river, with its cultivated region, beyond 
which would stretch another howling wilderness, 
and so on through these alternating plantation belts, 
and great dismal swamps, until at last one stood on 
the banks of the King of Rivers. 

The swamp we are speaking of in this chapter 
was the first in order, and lay between the Walnut 
Hills and the Yazoo River. It varied from five to 
ten miles in width and was over fifty miles long. 
It was a gloomy stretch of shadowy woods, cypress 
and canebrakes and rustling palmettos. The cy- 
press trees trailed from their branches long ban- 
ners of gray moss, while from the tops of other 
monarchs of the forest, great vines fifty feet and 
more in length, and thick as a human limb, fell 
earthward, and looked in their natural twists and 
convolutions like immense anacondas and boa-con- 
strictors, ready and waiting for their prey. 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


9 


On the ground was a thick, brown carpet of 
leaves which had been steadily forming for many 
years. The trunks of prostrate trees overthrown 
by storms, or fallen through decay, were spotted 
with gray and white as by a leprous touch. The 
light that filtered through the thick foliage above, 
was of a misty, veiled order, which served to make 
the shadowy vistas all the more spectral, and pre- 
pared the thumping heart for a greater leap at the 
appearance, now not unexpected, of some uncanny 
thing or being in a neighboring or remote opening 
of the woods. 

To stand alone, even at mid-day, in the midst 
of this swamp was an experience never to be for- 
gotten. The sky would be almost entirely shut 
out by the interwoven branches and leaves over- 
head. The only sounds to be heard was the oc- 
casional fall of an acorn, the tap of a woodpecker, 
the scream of a blue jay, or cry of some strange 
bird hidden away in thicket or lagoon. When 
these were not noticed, then the listener became 
conscious of a sound that, no matter how often 
heard, always sent the blood tingling through the 
body and an awestruck feeling to the soul. It was 
the sigh of the woods ! the voice of the forest itself. 
It \vould steal upon the ear a faint, far off murmur ; 


IO 


PEN PICTURES. 


rise to a soft, plaintive wail for minutes, and then 
die away into a silence, which was as affecting as 
the sound itself. Sometimes the sigh would be 
kept up unbrokenly for minutes before it would 
cease its complaint, and sink to rest in some re- 
mote depths of the wilderness. The writer never 
stood near the edge of this swamp, entered into its 
borders, or rode through its extent, without hear- 
ing this peculiar melancholy sound. It seemed to 
be a lament over something in itself, and a proph- 
ecy of trouble. It might well have stood for the 
sorrowful things which had taken place within its 
own dark boundaries. 

Some gruesome occurrences had transpired in 
past years along its bayous and in its depths which 
made a number reluctant to go alone through it in the 
day and positively refuse to j ourney by night . There 
had been several murders or suicides, none knew 
which, and there was no way of finding out, as the 
woods never told its secrets, but kept on sighing. 
There had been a number of drownings in branch, 
slough, and bayou. One in particular comes back 
to the mind. Two negro men had been sent to 
drive a yoke of oxen across the swamp to the 
river. There had been a heavy rain, which 
had swollen a bayou and caused it to overflow its 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


II 


banks ; the negroes, thinking they could wade 
across, drove the oxen into the water, and saw them 
immediately swept off their feet, and, hampered by 
the yoke, drown, and float away in the current. 
The two men swam to a tree, and, climbing up to 
a fork, sat there for hours, calling in vain for help. 
At last, in the dusk of the evening, one of 
them, despairing of assistance, leaped from the 
tree with the intention of swimming to the shore, 
but, to the horror of his comrade, after making a 
few efforts, sank before his eyes. The other re- 
mained on his lonely perch through the night, 
shouting at intervals, but answered only by hooting 
owls. Late next day he was rescued by a passing 
hunter, more dead than alive. 

There were numerous instances like this, most 
of them connected with a certain bayou, which 
rising in the hills, stole through the swamp with a 
serpentine course, and winding around a part of 
the western edge of the woods, necessitated a cross- 
ing by ford or ferry in order to reach the planta- 
tions beyond. This stream had a number of times 
paid tribute to the Yazoo River in the shape of 
dead bodies of men, who, bewildered in the night, 
had attempted to cross in the wrong place, and 
sinking in the mud, or becoming entangled in the 


12 


PEN PICTURES. 


vines, were finally swallowed up and afterwards 
borne away by the yellow tide. 

Owing to the faint trails through the swamp, 
and their frequent crossing of one another, it was 
difficult for a person to get through even in the 
day time ; while to attempt the task at night meant 
perfect failure to any one except those most famil- 
iar with the paths of the forest. Even they, on 
dark nights, would be puzzled and have to wait 
for the moon to rise or the day to break in order 
to pursue their journey. Hence the cries of noc- 
turnal birds and prowling animals were not the 
only sounds that proceeded from the swamp after 
nightfall. Oftentimes from its dark depths came 
the shout or cry of a belated and lost traveler, which 
would be succeeded and swallowed up later by the 
distant hooting of owls. 

A lady, well known to the writer, lived, during 
the Civil War, on the western edge of this swamp, 
her plantation being skirted by the woods. Her 
dwelling was a quarter of a mile from the forest, 
and there were nights when she said she could hear 
these calls and cries of lost travelers. There was 
no one whom she could dispatch to their relief, as 
the negroes had been driven or enticed away by 
the Federal soldiers ; so the shouts would die away 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


13 


as the man wandered further off, and nothing would 
be heard save the cry of some distant night bird. 
She said, “the melancholy impressions of those 
nights would never be effaced.” 

The swamp had a population peculiarly its own ; 
a number of deer, a few bear, panthers and cata- 
mounts, some wild turkeys and every kind of owl 
and variety of bird. It had also its turtles, sleep- 
ing on sunlit logs, or falling with a “plunk” into 
the green sloughs at the snapping of a twig ; and 
snakes coiled up and looking like a bunch of autumn 
leaves, or dragging their spotted length across the 
trail before you. In addition to these natural deni- 
zens, were the lost travelers of whom I have spoken, 
and during the war a band of men who were de- 
serters from the Confederate ranks, or flying from 
draft and conscription, took to this tangled wilder- 
ness for refuge, and there, building huts of palmetto, 
and feeding on fish, turkey, the flesh of the wild 
hog and such other things as they could silently 
snare or entrap, they kept a watchful eye out for 
government officers, and would disappear like a 
flash in a cane-brake where it would have taken an 
army to find them. 

On one occasion, the writer went with a num- 
ber of friends on a deer hunt. Two of the party 


H 


PEN PICTURES. 


were Confederate officers home on furlough. We 
had penetrated deep into the swamp and were 
swiftly following the dogs, whose cry was grow- 
ing fainter and fainter in the distance as they fol- 
lowed the game. Something had happened to make 
the deer avoid the “stand,” and, forsaking the 
usual run on the ridge, go deep into the forest. 
One of the officers and the writer, then a lad, found 
themselves together galloping at as great speed 
after the pack of receding hounds as the cane, pal- 
metto and jungle-like woods would allow, when 
suddenly there stood before us, leaning on his gun, 
and not twenty yards away, a deserter. When he 
glanced up and saw the uniformed man by my side, 
his astonishment was as great as his instantaneous 
flight was rapid. The soldier gave a great outcry 
and spurred his horse to a swift pursuit. How the 
man escaped us has ever been a mystery. The next 
time we saw him he was fully an hundred yards 
away in the middle of a cypress slough leaping 
from log to log and going where we could not pos- 
sibly follow. He seemed to thoroughly know his 
ground, or rather lack of ground, and had we at- 
tempted to cross as he did the result would have 
been death to the horses and certain disaster to our- 
selves. We had one more distant glimpse of him 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


15 


through an opening of the trees. He had crossed 
the quagmire and stood for a moment looking back 
at us, when, with a bound, he plunged into a cane- 
brake and disappeared. 

As a boy of thirteen, I first saw this swamp, 
heard it sigh, felt its strange, sorrowful presence, 
and stood in fear and awe of its secrets, its known 
and unknown history. 

I recall standing just outside my mother’s plan- 
tation, close to the border of the forest, and peer- 
ing into its far-away depths, curiously, wistfully, 
and yet fearfully. I wanted to go in, but the dark 
shadows, gloomy vistas and that solemn sigh kept 
me back. 

A few months later I had penetrated the woods 
a half mile alone and after that, a mile. At four- 
teen, gun in hand, I found myself two miles deep 
in the swamp, on the banks of a cypress-brake, 
beyond which the forest stretched away with even 
darker depths, and more melancholy sounds. Hun- 
ters told me of still remoter brakes and bayous, 
where wild game abounded and Indians came in 
the fall to hunt. 

Of course, I went deeper after that, until I reached 
the heart of the forest, and knew that miles of dense 
woodland stretched on every side of me. To this 


1 6 


PEN PICTURES. 


day I recall the lonely scene, the dark vistas of 
the woods, the moss-grown and mouldering logs, 
the matted and knotted vines falling from lofty 
limbs to the ground and running like suspension 
bridges from tree to tree. I still remember the 
awful stillness of the hour and place, broken only 
at intervals by the weird cry of the rain-crow on 
some tree top, the hoarse boom of a frog from a 
brake, or that mournful sigh coming up from in- 
visible and unknown regions of the forest. 

At fifteen I knew well some of the trails across 
the swamp, and one day, while on horseback, I 
met in its very center a carriage with a negro driver 
on the box and three ladies inside, all looking 
bewildered, evidently lost, and not knowing what 
to do. It was a beautiful October afternoon and 
the autumn leaves were falling silently like a 
golden rain through the woods. To this day I 
recall the anxious face of the driver and the 
troubled countenances of the lady and her two 
handsome, dark-eyed daughters. 

Taught by my mother to be always gallant and 
polite to ladies, I offered my services to guide the 
distressed group out of the swamp, yet I must 
admit that the two pair of dark eyes turned appeal- 
ingly to me, would have been sufficient to prevent 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


17 


me from proving recreant to my early training. 
By this act of courtesy, however, I was led a num- 
ber of miles directly away from home, and it was 
already late in the afternoon. There was a volley 
of fervent thanks from the carriage window : 

“Oh, you are so kind.” 

“How can we sufficiently thank you,” etc., etc. 

In the midst of it all I headed the procession, 
with leaves falling upon us, or rustling under the 
horses’ feet, and led the way to the farther side of 
the swamp. 

The ladies were now able for the first time to 
note the gold and crimson beauty of the woods, 
apart from the terror of its shadowy depths and 
solemn moan, which rose and fell like a requiem. 

When I left the party an hour later, in sight of 
the. open fields and blue hills beyond, fervent 
expressions of gratitude from the inmates of the 
carriage were again repeated ; but insisting I had 
done nothing but what gave me pleasure, I gal- 
loped back in the forest, leaving the negro driver 
my life-long friend, and saying with every tooth 
revealed : - 

“I’s sho glad we done meet you dis day.” 

And yet only a few months after this occur- 
rence I lost my way after nightfall in the heart of 


i8 


PEN PICTURES. 


this same forest, and had to wait for hours at the 
foot of a tree until moonrise in order to find the 
road. I shall never forget the convention the owls 
held over the affair, nor the blood-curdling “hoo- 
hoos” and “hah-hahs” of which they freely deliv- 
ered themselves. As to the “who,” I knew well 
enough the troubled individual ; and as to the 
laughter over his predicament, I felt he might well 
have been spared. If they had only known how 
the lost lad had been forced into their company, 
and was only too anxious to find his way back to 
civilization, they surely would have had pity on 
his ears and fears during that long night. 

I was twenty-two years of age when one night 
the following occurrence took place in this memor- 
able swamp. 

At the time, I was associated in business with a 
gentleman who was planting and merchandising 
together, having a couple of plantations which lay 
at the foot of the hills, and on the eastern line of 
the swamp. Learning late one night that this 
friend was to be robbed of a certain number of cot- 
ton bales, then lying at one of the Yazoo River 
landings, I determined to give him warning at 
once. Had I waited until next day it would have 
been too late. I was at the time on the western 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


r 9 


edge of the swamp. It was then nine o’clock, and 
the wide, black, sighing forest lay between me and 
the man I desired to warn. 

I never hesitated, however, but, flinging myself 
on a fleet, bay mare, soon crossed the plantation 
and entered the woods. It was quite dark, and I 
had to trust much to the horse, while urging her 
into a gallop whenever the road and a few star- 
lighted spaces made it possible. I had progressed 
swiftly, and well, and was just in the center of the 
swamp, when, glancing to the right, where an old 
road had made a semicircular bend about a fallen 
tree, I saw., twenty feet away, what seemed to be 
a gigantic man, with a dark face, and hair and 
beard white as snow. There was a sudden leap of 
the heart into the throat, the horse gave a snort 
and swerved aside ; but being in a hurry, and hav- 
ing no desire anyhow to stop and examine into 
such a strange and supernatural looking spectacle, 
at such an hour and in such a place, I swept on, 
leaving the real or imaginary thing behind, and in 
due time came out into the midst of broad corn and 
cotton fields, with the stars shining softly and reas- 
suringly upon me, and the lights of the house I 
was approaching, twinkling in the distance. 

I found that the gentleman had retired, but was 


20 


PEN PICTURES. 


reading in bed. After telling him why I had taken 
the long night ride, and he had decided as to his 
course of action, I bade him good-night and pre- 
pared to return, steadily refusing his invitation to 
remain. Just as I was about to open the door, he 
called out, saying : 

“Be careful as 'you go through the swamp 
tonight. The darkies say there is a crazy negro 
loose in the woods, as big as a giant and his hair 
as white as cotton.” 

Instantly I recalled the vision I had beheld in 
the forest, and told my friend I had already seen 
the crazy man. 

With another warning from him to “look out,” 
I closed the door, and mounting my horse, now 
fresh again from a half hour’s rest, was soon can- 
tering across the fields. 

A silver haze stretched in lines or hung in banks 
over the quiet landscape. The glittering constel- 
lation Scorpion, which I had marked in the begin- 
ning of the night ride, had sunk out of sight in the 
West, but the Great and Little Bear swung high 
in twinkling beauty in the northern sky over the 
forest which I was approaching. The swamp never 
looked darker to me than it did that night ; and it 
seemed I never heard it sigh so much as, when 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


21 


stooping my head, I rode at eleven o’clock under 
its low-hanging branches into its black depths. 
The grating sound made by the mighty limbs over- 
head reminded me of a giant grinding his teeth. 
Away off to the left an owl hooted. It seemed the 
echoes would never die away. The cry was to the 
left, which, according to the Southern negro, 
means bad luck. There was another hoot from a 
different quarter, and the woods sighed as if in 
mortal pain. I followed the trail around a brake 
which could not be forded, the cypress knees look- 
ing in the dim starlight like headstones in a grave- 
yard. I crossed a boggy slough, rode along its 
banks a mile, then on through cane-brakes and 
rustling palmettos, past the place where I had seen 
the startling vision. 

I galloped on swiftly a mile or so, when sud- 
denly from the left side of the road, where the trees 
were loftiest, and the shadows most dense, and 
there was a mass of tangled vines, a wild scream 
rang out on the air, followed immediately by a 
burst of maniacal laughter. 

To say that my blood almost froze in my veins 
and a great horror filled me is to speak only the 
truth. But in five seconds it was all over as I 
recognized in the sounds, at first so startling, the 


22 


PEN PICTURES. 


peculiar laughter-like cries of our Southern owls. 
They first give a scream and then indulge in ‘ ‘haw- 
haws” horribly like the merriment of maniacs. 

I observed that my horse never swerved at this 
sound. She recognized the natural quicker and 
better than I did. 

Two miles farther put me in the neighborhood of 
“Dead Man’s Bayou.” As I drew near, looking 
carefully through the gloom for the road which led 
down to the ford, I suddenly saw through the trees 
ahead of me and. to one side, the same colossal figure 
and white head I had encountered several hours 
before in the center of the forest. Stopping my horse 
I watched him with a beating heart, as he moved 
in a line almost parallel to the road and near the wat- 
er’s edge of the bayou. Like a flash I remembered 
my friend’s warning, and said under my breath : 

“Here is the crazy man.” 

Riding a little nearer, and again reining in my 
horse, I looked and listened. I saw at once he was 
trying to find a log or place where he could cross 
the stream, and I heard him moaning and mutter- 
ing to himself. The bayou and the road approached 
each other at an angle, and I saw that the man 
would reach the ford ahead of me. 

Here was a situation indeed. Still nearly a 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


23 


mile from home, Dead Man’s Bayou to cross, and 
a brawny negro lunatic in thirty feet of me I 

Passing on ahead the man, still unconscious of 
my presence, went down to the bridge of rails or 
puncheons laid in the mud which made the ford ; 
but as half of it was covered with rushing water 
fully four feet deep, his course was arrested, and 
again he gave that moaning sound. He moved up 
and down the bank, his gigantic figure looking 
even larger for the shadows, his white head float- 
ing spectrally in the gloom, and still muttering to 
himself. 

What should I do? 

Evidently the man was trying to cross the 
bayou. Unacquainted with the logs beneath, and 
ignorant of the depth of the water before him, he 
did not know what course to pursue. 

I had a great battle within. Should I make a 
dash for the ford and leave this escaped lunatic in 
the woods? It certainly was the most prudent 
course. What would my slight form be in the 
grasp of this dangerous and powerful creature. 
Besides I was under no obligation, even if equally 
strong, to be hunting up and helping maniacs who 
were wandering about at midnight in a swamp. 

But a feeling of pity began to rise in my heart. 


24 


PEN PICTURES. 


The creature, whoever he might be, was in distress. 
I felt like running a risk to do a kindness. So, 
riding up suddenly out of the dark to him, I said : 

“Can I help you across the water?” 

The reply was so gibberish that a spasm of fear 
shot through me ; but under the uncanny sound 
was the accent of suffering, and bending forward 
to scrutinize the features of the lunatic in the star- 
light, I thought I saw enough of need and bewild- 
erment to be construed into a supplication for help. 
So speaking again to him cheerily and pointing to 
a fallen tree, I said : 

“Stand on that log and get on behind me, and 
I will take you across.” 

The herculean Bedlamite mounted the log while 
I urged my animal closer, when, with hands out- 
stretched, he stooped down and clutched me tightly 
about the throat. Merciful heavens ! was he going 
to choke his benefactor. 

No ! evidently not this time. The hands pressed 
heavily down to steady his body, and he then stiffly 
swung himself astride the horse. The next mo- 
ment he threw his arms around me and had me so 
pinioned that I could scarcely guide the animal ! 
Another fear rose in my heart as I felt the grasp, 
while I mentally said : 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


2 5 


“ What a fool I am to be asking a giant lunatic 
to take a ride behind me in the woods at mid- 
night.” <s 

The thought also flashed through me with a kind 
of grim humor : 

“ Who would have dreamed that having been 
warned about this very man, I would have him, a 
burly, crazy negro, hoisted up on my horse behind 
me, just two hours later. What would my friend 
think if he could see me now?” 

But another moment reassured me as I noticed 
that the grasp was not of hate or fury, but, in a cer- 
tain sense, one of helplessness. 

Still, with sensations far from pleasant, I turned 
toward the ford. The horse fairly staggered under 
the heavy load as approaching the bridge I rode into 
the rushing torrent. She kept her footing with 
difficulty on the puncheons, which had grown 
smooth and slippery from the continual flow of 
water over them. The yellow current ran with a 
noise that rose above the floundering of the horse 
and the tossing of the tree branches overhead. 

The faithful, but overloaded animal had reached 
the middle of the stream, when suddenly the left 
forefoot shot in between two of the sunken logs. 
The noble creature made a splendid effort to keep up 


2 6 


PEN PICTURES. 


and pull out, but in vain, and down all three of us 
went together into the flood. The horse struggled 
like a leviathan until the foot was extricated, and 
then plunged for the bank. The lunatic released 
his pinioning grasp of me and disappeared under 
the yellow waves. I made a precipitate dash for 
the sinking man, caught hold of his arms, which 
appeared thrust upward out of the water and, stand- 
ing waist deep in the bayou, with great difficulty 
helped him to his feet. 

In a few moments all three of us stood on the 
bank of the rushing stream, thoroughly saturated, 
and presenting a most remarkable appearance. 
The snorting, trembling horse, the white-headed, 
moaning lunatic, and I, still holding the animal 
with one hand and the crazy negro with the other, 
made a curious trio. 

The rest of the journey to the house, which was 
almost a mile away, was made on foot, all three oi 
us walking abreast along the star-lighted road, with 
white cotton fields on each side, and no sound break- 
ing the stillness but the low, inarticulate noise made 
by the lunatic, and the footfalls of the faithful ani- 
mal by my side. 

In a little while the horse was comfortable in his 
stall in front of a full trough, the demented man was 


A SWAMP ADVENTURE. 


27 


left in kind hands in one of the negro cabins, where 
food and dry clothing were given him, while I, in 
the “ Big House,” tossed wakefully upon my bed 
and reviewed the strange scenes of the last few 
hours. 

One fact was perfectly clear to me before fall- 
ing asleep, and that was that in the face of the 
perils which had been encountered, the only thing 
which had perished in the woods or drowned in 
the bayou, was — my fear of the poor, crazy negro. 


I. 


A CABIN WAIF. 


'pHE study of character is one of the most fasci- 
nating of occupations. Human life in every 
social and moral plane is full of interest. In a 
sense, people are text-books, and some of them 
hold us to the living page with the charm and in- 
terest of a novel. Such people are types. They 
have a strongly marked individuality, the posses- 
sion of gifts and attributes, styles of speech and 
mannerisms, which differentiate them from all 
others. 

These interesting, living subjects are found 
not simply in high, but in low places. They are 
met with on the throne and in the stable ; in rural 
regions and on crowded city thoroughfares ; on 
dusty highways under the light of the stars, and 
walking on velvet and Brussels carpets with the 
soft luster of costly chandeliers falling upon them. 
Whenever and wherever found, they are types. 
They are refreshingly distinct and different from 
other people, talk and act in a manner peculiarly 

their own, and hold you with the charm of freshness, 
(28) 


A CABIN WAIF. 


2 9 


novelty, or originality. They maybe more or less 
richly endowed mentally, but the peculiar power 
of uniqueness is there. 

Dickens found many of his creations on the 
streets of London, while Craddock obtained hers 
in the mountains of Tennessee. They are to be 
met everywhere, and are certain to be recognized 
by the thoughtfully observant. 

The old-time Southern plantations were far 
more prolific in the production of interesting per- 
sonages and striking characters than many people 
would imagine. Two of these claim the reader’s 
attention in this sketch : a mother and her son. 

Matilda, or Tildy, as the negroes called her, 
was a raw-boned woman of forty. She had a face 
as black as the ace of spades, and possessed a tem- 
per that at times was several shades blacker. She 
had been married, and in the few years of wedded 
life had led her husband a perfect dance, until one 
day he contracted some swamp chills, which shook 
him out of his body and far away from the shak- 
ings that Matilda used to give him. He left her 
two girls, a boy named Toby, and some old rags 
in the shape of his worn-out clothing. The sable- 
colored widow philosophically took the better por- 
tion of the garments and transferred them into her 


30 


PEN PICTURES. 


quilts, while one or two pairs of trousers descended 
to Toby, and for that matter descended far below 
him, for he was only three feet high, while his 
father was, or had been, a six-footer. 

After the husband died, Matilda worked off' her 
spasms of fury upon her children. She had a way 
of paying her respects to them with broom-sticks, 
hoe-handles and brickbats. Being a woman of 
ungovernable temper, when she started to punish 
them, she would use the first thing available as an 
instrument of correction. A wooden handspike, a 
pair of tongs, or an iron poker were eminently sat- 
isfactory to her when she was on the warpath. 

In the course of time the girls were placed else- 
where in some kind of farm or housework, and 
Toby was left to receive the undivided attentions 
of his mother in the way just mentioned. 

The child was eight years old when the mother 
was brought from the quarters and installed as one 
of the house servants. From that time our atten- 
tion was attracted to the peculiar way the mother 
had of bringing the boy up, or rather, of knocking 
him down. 

He was a black- faced, kinky-headed child, 
with a curious look, compounded of suspicion, 
fear, and pleading. If he ever possessed a hat, we 


A CABIN WAIF. 


31 


never knew it ; he went bare-headed as well as 
bare-footed for four years of his life, to our certain 
knowledge. He was arrayed some days in a 
coarse Lowells shirt which descended midway 
between his thighs and knees, and on other days, 
in a pair of trousers which had belonged to his 
father. Matilda cut off about twelve inches from 
the legs, and gathered in the garment at the waist, 
with a great rudder-like bulge behind ; but still 
they were entirely too large. She rolled them up 
at the bottom in liberal folds, while the waistband 
was so loose that Toby had to hold the garment up 
with his left hand when standing or walking, to 
keep it from leaving him altogether. When sitting 
or lying down, he had some relief from his task of 
pantaloon support, but the instant he rose to a per- 
pendicular position, the danger of being suddenly 
denuded stared him in the face, and he immediately 
resumed the old hand-hitch on the waistband. 

He never appeared wearing both of these gar- 
ments, the shirt and pantaloons, at the same time. 
This would have been rolling in luxury, indeed ! 
The shirt days were the happier, if the boy could 
be said to have had any happiness at all. On 
these occasions he had nothing to hold up with his 
hands, or to cumber him in one of his precipitate 


32 


PEN PICTURES. 


flights from his mother. The shirt was not only- 
more agreeable to Toby in a general way, but, in 
the sudden maternal sallies, it proved to be a spe- 
cial blessing in giving greater freedom to the little 
black legs in the way of escape. At such times, 
the end of the garment stood out on a line with the 
horizon, and no drum-sticks ever came down with 
greater rapidity than did his feet strike the surface 
of the earth. But the day he wore the trousers 
was not only one of physical discomfort, but posi- 
tive terror to him, for all retreats were executed 
with fears of tripping, and falling into the hands of 
his pursuer. 

Sitting in the house one day we heard something 
strike the side of the building with a resounding 
bang. Going quickly to the door, we had a glimpse 
of Toby vanishing at full speed in the distance, 
with the angry mother at his heels. The battle 
that morning had opened with a brick thrown at 
the boy, but which fortunately missed him and hit 
the house. If it had struck him, there would have 
been an immediate end of the lad. 

Often, after this, we have heard a commotion in 
the yard and, on hastily going out, would see one 
of those suddenly instituted pursuits. The child, 
nimble of foot, and expert at dodging from long 


A CABIN WAIF. 


33 


practice, could be seen fairly llying, keeping out of 
the way of rocks, chunks of wood and flat irons, 
and finally, through the intricacies of the back 
yard and out-houses, disappearing in the remoter 
depths of the garden or orchard. 

If some one should ask why such a conduct 
was tolerated by a humane and well-regulated 
Southern home, the answer is that Matilda was not 
only a first-class washer and ironer, but quick to 
do anything in the shape of work. She was as 
smart as she was high-tempered. In addition, she 
had a most indulgent mistress, who did not like to 
worry herself about anything. When one of these 
sudden bangs against wall or fence resounded 
through the house, followed by the sudden uproar 
of voices and laughter which always accompanied 
this outbreak of war, with flight and pursuit, Mrs. 
Carleton would ask one of her servants : 

“What on earth is the matter out of doors?” 
and the servant, with shining rows of teeth, would 
answer : 

“ ’Tain’ nuffin’ ’tall, Miss Ma’y, ’cep’n Tildy 
arter Toby,” and so the matter would drop. 

Two surprising things were connected with 
these storms. One was, that the offence of the 
child was often of the most trifling nature, the 


34 


pen Pictures. 


dropping of a tin cup, or the failure to hear his 
mother speak, etc. Then the chase began, with 
interested observers popping their heads out of 
kitchen windows and cabin doors, broad grins 
steadily enlarging on black and yellow faces, while 
the crash of a rock against the fence, narrowly 
missing the fugitive, would bring forth stentorian 
guffaws from the men and shrill laughter from the 
women. 

The dress of negro children is generally ar- 
ranged with a view to ventilation, and Toby was 
specially favored in this regard, so the sight of the 
bare-legged, bare-footed racer with his slim, black 
limbs twinkling over the ground, and his old shirt 
standing on end as he fled, was a never failing 
source of amusement to the colored observers, 
though it was anything but amusing to Toby. He 
was always terribly in earnest. He had to be, as 
he ducked and dodged from missiles ranging from 
one to five pounds in weight, any one of which 
could easily have killed him. 

Matilda’s language to Toby was pretty much 
after the same pattern as her bodily treatment of 
the child, the tongue being as severe as the hand. 
It was : 

“Come hyer to me, you triflin’ whelp !” or 


A CABIN WAIF. 35 

“I’ll break ev’y bone in yoh body wid dis flat 
i’on, you black monkey, you,” or 

“I’ll bust yoh haid wide open wid dis stick,” 
etc., etc. 

There were other expressions with which Toby 
was often favored when the maternal thermometer 
ran high, that we do not care to repeat, 

To pass in front of the lowly cabin in which 
the family lived, was to notice that a kind of rat- 
tling musketry fire of scolding was the general or- 
der of things, varied now and then with a forty- 
four pounder explosion. It only required a few 
minutes pause outside the door for the ear to note 
the orbit daily described by the woman’s tongue. 
First there was a muttering, a kind of low, fussing 
tone, then a sharp cry to one of the children : 

“Git out dar !” 

“What you doin’ thar?” 

“Come hyer to me ! I’ll kill you ef I kin git 
at you. I will mun.” 

So Toby was reared in the midst of expletives 
and rocks. In these experiences he was far ahead 
of David, who had Shimel to curse and throw 
stones at him on a single afternoon, while Toby 
had this kind of treatment every day. The boy 
may be smd to have moved planet-like through a 


36 


PEN PICTURES. 


never-ending meteoric zone or belt, his own course 
being a most remarkable and erratic one, as he 
spent his life avoiding all bodies larger and heavier 
than himself. 

In these flights there was one line of Hamlet’s 
soliloquy which could, very properly, have been 
quoted by the lad. He could truthfully have said : 

“Toby or not Toby, that is the question.” 

He fully realized that if one of the missiles flung 
at him should strike him, there would be no more 
Toby! 

As for the “slings and arrows,” Hamlet spoke 
about, he knew them not ; but the rocks and brick- 
bats were just as deadly. In the matter of “out- 
rageous fortune,” he was once more in port, but 
adrift again in regard to “taking up arms against 
a sea of troubles.” He preferred, in face of the 
peculiar difficulties of his life, to trust to his legs, 
leaving arms of all kinds out of the question. 

Another surprising thing connected with these 
backyard eruptions was the speediness with which 
the whole affair was forgotten by the chief actor. 
Perhaps, a half hour after, Matilda would be seen 
with the head of the offending child on her lap, 
while she, with motherly pride, combed out his 
kinks with a pair of cotton cards, tying up his hair 


A CABIN WAIF. 


37 


with gay-looking strings, or engaged in an explo- 
ration of the bushy cranium before her, the nature 
ot which investigation we beg to be excused from 
mentioning. 

There was still another feature of these affairs 
which was the natural outcome of this treatment 
of the boy. He came to wear a wary, anxious 
look when approaching his mother, as if expecting 
breakers ahead. Not knowing what he was to re- 
ceive, whether bread or a stone, when she cried, 
“Come hyer to me !” he naturally drew near with 
great misgivings and visible signs of trepidation. 
It was noteworthy that Matilda spoke just as 
sharply when she had food for him, as when she 
had a cudgel hidden behind her with which to 
dress him down. There were no visible signs by 
which he could guess whether there was war or 
peace in the air, but a most uncomfortable uncer- 
tainty hung over all. The boy had been deceived 
many times in both ways ; sometimes looking for 
a beating, he received a piece of bread ; and at 
other times, going for one of the slim meals with 
which his body and soul were kept together, sud- 
denly, without any warning, the stick appeared, 
the rock was hurled, and Toby ran for his life. 
Then would follow an excitement and commotion 


3 § 


PEN PICTURES. 

in the backyard, which if projected on a comment 
surate scale among the nations, would be called a 
great war and require volumes to describe. 

So Toby, not having a regular course of con- 
duct on the part of his mother to guide him, had 
to live moment by moment by faith, and sometimes 
with no faith at all, at least in the maternal head 
of the family. He had neither chart nor compass, 
and drifted never knowing where he was, nor when 
a rock would strike him and he be as effectually 
scuttled as any ship that ever sank. He trusted, 
in comon parlance, to luck, or, more truly speak- 
ing, to his eyes and heels ; the one to discover the 
first signs of coming danger, the other to bear him 
away to safety at race-horse speed. 

To this day, we recall the cowed look of the boy, 
the anxious, distrusting glance which he repeatedly 
cast at his mother from under his brows, while upon 
his lips was the poorest attempt at a smile that we 
ever beheld. It was intended by him to be con- 
ciliatory and ingratiating, but often seemed to in- 
furiate the strange, unnatural mother ; and if she 
did happen to overflow in a Vesuvian way, it was 
simply amazing to watch the instantaneous disap- 
pearance of the smile, the equally quick gathering 
of a look of fear in his eyes, while, with the ab- 


A CABIN WAIF. 


39 


sorbing purpose of immediate escape in his mind, 
suddenly a pair of black soles were turned mother- 
ward, and a pair of black legs moved over the 
ground toward -a place of safety with a rapidity 
that would have made a castanet player turn green 
with envy. 

More than once we have seen him summoned 
sharply by his mother to come before a group of 
ladies and gentlemen standing on the verandah of 
the “Big House.” He would approach with his 
half-imbecile manner, the watchful look in his eye, 
and the painful attempt at a smile on his mouth. 
Once we saw him, while waiting to be addressed, 
slowly raise one foot from the ground and scratch 
a mosquito from the calf of his left leg with the 
toe of the uplifted member without losing - his bal- 
ance. Suddenly, Matilda turned like a cyclone 
upon him, and said : 

“Whar’s yer perliteness? Why doan you show 
yer mannus to de white folks?” 

Down at once dropped Toby’s foot from the 
mosquito hunt, the toes spoon-like scooped up and 
threw backward some gravel, while his hand pulled 
a lock of hair in front. All this was intended for 
a bow, and was “showin’ his mannus.” It was 
painful to see the anxious, troubled look cast out 


4 ° 


PEN PICTURES. 


of the corner of his eye upon his mother, do ^ce 
if his “mannus” had been acceptable. 

Several times we heard Mrs. Carleton savto Ma- 
tilda : 

“Why don’t you put better clothes on your 
child?” 

“Lor’, Miss,” replied the mother, with a loud 
laugh, “dat boy won’t keep nuffin’ on, no matter 
whut I puts on him, Ef I dress him in silk and 
satin, he won’t have nuffin’ ’tall to show fur it by 
night.” 

The idea of Toby being attired in silk and satin 
was decidedly mirth-provoking, but Mrs. Carleton 
did not smile. Saying nothing more she went 
back into the house, though evidently not satisfied, 
while the boy under discussion was left to alternate 
between the trousers and shirt. 

Sometimes we have heard an angry summons 
ring out on the air to him, and the order literally 
hurtled from the mouth : 

“Go dis minute, you black imp you, an' rock 
yer Aunt Nancy’s baby whut’s squallin’ hitself to 
death!” 

Off went Toby like a shot, knowing well what 
the least delay would bring upon him and in a few 
moments a peculiar hammering sound on the cabin 


A CABIN WAIF. 


41 


floor gave evidence that one ot his daily duties had 
been entered upon. The knocking was made by 
the alternate rise and fall of a box without rockers 
and which had the compliment conferred upon it 
of being called a cradle. In this box was the 
yelling young African he was commanded to quiet. 
For some minutes it seemed doubtful which would 
win in the competition of sound, the cradle or the 
baby ; but Toby went at it systematically and dog- 
gedly ; he was used to noise, especially this one, 
and so grasping the side of the box in his hands, 
he met the duty of the hour, which was to make 
the baby hush, and this he did, accomplishing the 
task in periods ranging from five to twenty min- 
utes. Little by little, the child from being jerked 
about in the cradle, beame dizzy, then less vocif- 
erous, and finally was literally banged and jarred 
into unconsciousness, and the well-meaning nurse 
was free again. 

Toby spent, as we have said, most of his life in 
dodging rocks and brickbats. He had enough 
thrown at him to have erected a monument of large 
proportions. 

The boy’s life, was, in a sense, a military one, 
full of sudden advances by the foe and rapid retir- 
ings on his part. It was in the line of falling back 


4 2 


PEN PICTURES. 


that he attained such marvelous proficiency. From 
much experience, he became a perfect expert in 
bringing his own forces oft' the field, well-blown 
and exhausted, it is true, but always alive. Few 
military leaders have been as successful in flight 
as Toby proved himself for a number of years. 

We can not but think that if he had been placed 
at West Point he would have developed into a mas- 
ter of strategy and swift retreat. Gen. Joseph E. 
Johnston, and Fabius, the famous Roman retirer, 
might well have sat at his feet had they only been 
his contemporaries. For all we know, a great mil- 
itary genius, a retreater, if not an .advancer, passed 
away when Toby vanished from public view. 

Several rumors of this negro family reached. us 
after their emancipation and departure from the 
plantation. One was to the effect that Matilda had 
sickened and died. Here was another confirma- 
tion and proof of the wisdom of being able to con- 
duct retreats. Just as Fabius, by his systematic 
and persistent fallings back, wore out opposing ar- 
mies, so Toby, by skillful flights and rapid dodges 
and disappearances, kept himself alive, while his 
mother exhausted herself by her frequent and pro- 
tracted verbal and stone attacks and sank prema- 
turely into the grave. She went down to the tomb 


A CABIN WAIF. 


43 


loaded with victories over her fugitive son, but 
they had been her own undoing. The inscription 
upon her sepulchre could very properly have been : 

“WORN OUT IN RAISING TOBY.” 

In other words, the human volcano reached the 
hour when it could do no more damage, its history 
ending with a little puff of breath from the open 
mouth, and lo ! the explosions and stone throwing 
of Matilda were over forever. 

Poor little Toby ! After the flight of busy years 
has crowded out many and important events, yet we 
recall him as vividly as though it were but yester- 
day. Once more we see the woolly head, black 
face and half-clad form of the boy. We remember 
the anxious look, the apprehensive, apologetic 
smile, the suspicious attitude, then the outbreak of 
hostilities and the sudden dash for life and liberty. 
We see the shirt streaming in a straight line, or the 
flapping, ill-fitting trousers held up with one hand, 
while the other digs into and saws the air most dili- 
gently. We can hear the feet pattering on the hard 
ground, the breath coming in gasps through the 
set teeth ; and in another moment the flying vision 
rounds the corner of the smokehouse, and has dis- 
appeared in the garden amid a shower of stones. 


44 


PEN PICTURES. 


What became of Toby after the Emancipation, 
is a mystery. There were two reports. One was 
to the effect that after his mother died, Toby fairly 
languished. In spite of all her roughness, he 
seemed to miss her. He moped around in back 
alleys and empty lots of the town, idly and discon- 
solately. He lacked the inspiration of sudden 
movement, as of yore. There was no reason for 
instantaneous and violent exertion. Othello’s oc- 
cupation was gone, and time hung heavy on the 
hands of the lad. 

For awhile he consorted with a crippled, 
one-eared cur dog, which seemed as friendless, 
hopeless and cast-off as himself. They were often 
seen together in lanes, back alleys and deserted 
out-houses, as if both avoided recognition, and ex- 
pected nothing and wanted nothing save to be let 
alone. One day the wheel of a great truck ran 
over the dog, and put an end to his hot-water 
baths and hunger pangs forever. After that, Toby 
was again alone, now being seen, and now missed, 
until one afternoon he was found dead in a stable 
loft. 

Another report was that he lived to be fourteen 
or fifteen years of age, but always manifested the 
greatest nervousness when he saw any missile 


A CABIN WAIF. 


45 


flying through the air. He was often observed to 
give a brickbat lying in his path a wide berth in 
passing. Several times he was seen looking at 
one, with an appearance of profound meditation. 
Doubtless, to his half-addled intellect, it was a 
thing of life, possessed inherent energy, and might 
any moment take wings and fly. As nearly all he 
had beheld prior to his mother’s death were in the 
air, and moving in lines toward him, he might 
have been pardoned for his conception of that piece 
of matter, and his conclusion that none were to 
be trusted. 

An ebony damsel of his age, taking a liking for 
the friendless boy, invited him to spend the even- 
ing at her father’s house on the edge of town. 
Near the place was a brick-yard. It was not long 
before the watchful eye of Toby beheld the lofty 
stacks of red brick finished and ready for use, piles 
of broken ones in a corner, and a great kiln in full 
blast in the manufacture of thousands more. In 
less time than it takes to tell it Toby had vanished. 
The yard, which would have been an ammunition 
depot for Matilda, and so a heaven to her, was any- 
thing but a paradise to Toby. Association was 
doubtless strong within him, and though the brick- 
vhrower was in her grave, yet here were the 


4 6 


PEN PICUTRES. 


bricks ! And Fear cried out, “Let us be going ! 
Why tarry we here any longer?” 

After that, he was passing by a livery stable, 
when a horse gave a kick on the partition-wall 
close to him. It sounded like a brick striking a 
fence. Instantly, the old nature was in arms, or 
rather in feet, and the half-witted boy ran like the 
wind for several blocks before he stopped to look 
back. The mother was dead, but her handiwork 
was still evident in the nervous system of the son. 
Her terror was still upon him, and that from a far 
distant world. 

The second report went on to say, that one day, 
in running from some real or imaginar}^ pursuer, 
Toby slipped on the ice-covered pavement as he 
turned a corner, and fell, striking his head against 
a large curbstone. He was picked up unconscious 
and laid on some straw in the harness-room of a 
livery stable. He aroused to a confused kind of 
consciousness in an hour or so, but looked terrified 
as he heard the knocking/ and tramping of the 
horses in their stalls, and tried to get up for the 
old-time run ; but he was too weak and sank back 
with an expression on his face of utter despair. 

The owner of the stable, a white man, bent over 
him and told him, in a kindly voice, that nothing 


A CABIN WAIF. 


47 


should hurt him. Whereupon, that curiously 
blended look of anxiety, hope and dread stole into 
the lad’s face, and attempting to reach his front 
lock of hair with his right hand, to “show his 
mannus,” his eyes suddenly glazed in death, and 
the tired, friendless soul left the half-starved, ema- 
ciated body forever. 

It was a deeply pathetic sight, the ragged figure 
on the straw pallet, the hand frozen in death in the 
act of salutation, and the lines of a pitiful, plead- 
ing expression still visible in the sorrow and pain- 
marked countenance. 

The stable man, with his white and black host- 
lers around him, looked silently at the dead form 
of the boy, and then all walked out softly, with 
that awe and- melancholy upon the soul which is 
always felt at the sight of an ended life, no matter 
how young or how humble that life may have 
been. 

Poor little Toby ! May he rest in peace ! This 
world had for him a hard and bitter lot. He had 
but little pleasure in his brightest days, if any could 
have been called bright at all. Cuffs, kicks, up- 
braidings, chunks of wood, and stones, were the 
things which abounded in his life ; and the aim and 
object of the boy was to miss as many of them as 


48 PEN PICTURES. 

he could. His joy, if joy he had, was over such 
escapes. 

We think of the One who said that not a sparrow 
falls to the ground without heavenly notice, and 
who spoke of a world where all tears are wiped 
away forever, and from off' all faces. 

We can not but connect that Good Country with 
this hunted child, who never knew what a real 
home and true mother was, and the greater part of 
whose life was spent in running from flying mis- 
siles, amid heartless bursts of laughter from his 
own people. Stunted in growth and half-witted 
from cruel treatment, he died early. We love to 
think of him as in “The Home-land,” where the 
angels will be far kinder to him than were his own 
kindred and race, and where we doubt not, he will 
be better oft' in every conceivable way, forever. 


III. 


WHY THEY WEPT. 

prominent ministers in a church have aspired to 
A still higher positions. They wished to add to their 
fame other things. Besides had they not read “If 
a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a 
good work;” a free translation of the last three 
words being “a good thing.” 

One aspirant may be a natural born politician 
laying his plans wisely and well, without offensive 
public exposure of the design in the mind and de- 
sire of the heart. Ardent friends and admirers with 
calculating eye upon hunter, dogs, and fox, become 
in a sense whippers in, and look forward not with- 
out anticipation and strong confidence as well, to 
the capture of the “brush,” at a certain quadren- 
nial season when hunters will be out in force and a 
grand drive take place. 

Another aspirant convinces his church that he 
has remarkable executive and administrative ability. 
Still another places the whole denomination under 
obligation by untangling some knotty church ques- 
tion, and throwing great light on that darkly pro- 
149 ) 


$0 


PEN PICTURES. 


found thing, ecclesiastical jurisprudence ; while a 
fourth lays the church under an additional burden 
of gratitude, by the removal of a load quite differ- 
ent from the other, but not the less heavy, mortify- 
ing and even crushing. 

It matters not what the service may have been, 
whether it required the working of the hands or 
the heels, the brains or the tongue ; yet some things 
are not done in a corner, nor can they be kept in a 
corner. It moves the Sanhedrim ; it touches the 
Council of the Seventy in a tender place ; while the 
Elders and Scribes are sure to write and talk about 
the vigorous and noble affair. 

Who but a prophet could forsee that the same 
aforesaid distinguished and grateful men when they 
came together in one of their great gatherings would 
offer some “whereases” and “be it resol veds,” 
twist their appreciation into a garland of certain 
gratifying shape and place it on the brow of one 
who had sky-rocketed his name and ricoched his 
body over the country for a space of time covering 
the waxing and waning of many moons, not to 
speak of the suns. 

There are however still others who do not lift a 
hand, so to speak, to obtain one of these high offices. 
They would feel degraded if they did anything on 


WHY THEY WEPT. 


51 

the outside looking to their elevation to this dig- 
nity. They simply long for it in the mind. It is 
an inner instead of an outer race for the goal. 

Now when through plans or no plans at all, cer- 
tain aspirants get the garlands mentioned, when 
after a little snow storm of ballots they are declared 
elected, even if they never get saved, it has been 
observed that without exception they burst into 
tears ! 

The whole thing is so sudden ! so unexpected ! 
so bewildering ! And doubtless some of them feel 
so unworthy, and the responsibility is so great ! 
Then leadership is such a life of loneliness ! so 
overworked ! so misunderstood ! so unappreciated ? 

In view of all this who can wonder at the weep- 
ing. 

It is felt by a number of the brethren that the 
tears of successful candidates do them great credit. 
Others remark that there are certain conditions 
when it is a positive luxury and delight to weep. 
Still others have been known to say with meaning 
looks and smiles that they would be willing to ex- 
change places with the elected martyrs in order to 
shed such tears. And still others with peculiar con- 
struction of the intellect and sensibilities utterly fail 
to see what there is to cry over at such a time. 


5 2 


PEN PICTURES. 


Among the observers of several such scenes 
was a man who described them to the writer. The 
conversation led almost insensibly up to a little 
humble talk about Psychology, the philosophy of 
tears, the thin wall between laughter and crying, 
etc., etc. 

At last the writer, after a thoughtful pause in 
which he took down a picture from the wall of 
memory, brushed the dust from it, and held it so as 
to obtain a better light upon the scene, spoke sud- 
denly, 

“I have the explanation.” 

Then, after another moment’s deliberation, with 
an unmistakable humorous twinkling in the eyes, 
he said : 

“ My childhood was spent in Yazoo City, Mis- 
sissippi. My mother had a lady friend, a Mrs. R , 

who lived several miles in the country and often 
visited us. 

One day on returning from school, after loiter- 
ing somewhat on the street on my homeward way, 
I was informed by my mother that if I had come 
home from school promptly I would have been in 
time to have accepted an invitation to go on a 
steamboat trip to Vicksburg. That Mrs. R — had 
come by in her carriage with her two boys on her 


WHY THEY WEPT. 


53 


way to the river landing where she would take the 

steamboat at 6 o’clock. That Mrs. R wanted 

me to go with her sons and had waited a full half 
hour, but as the steamer left at 6 p. m., she could 
wait no longer, and had to leave without me. 

In exact correspondence of facts and accurate 
detail, the same bitter history was related by my 
brothers and sisters and the servants. In like manner 
spake they all. As the funeral discourse and serv- 
ices proceeded, divided up among a number, the 
heart of the ten year old lad went steadily down 
toward his shoes, while a great aching, swelling 
lump ascended the other way and lodged in his 
throat. The world looked black indeed at that 
moment to the little school boy, and he was con- 
vinced that the future held nothing for him but 
despair. 

If there was anything he passionately loved and 
admired it was a steamboat. If there was any 
place he craved to see it was Vicksburg. He had 
been to several picnics on the shores of a woodland 
lake, and to a Fourth of July celebration on the 
riverside, and once on an hour’s excursion on a 
stern-wheeler, but here was a three days’ trip on a 
beautiful side wheel steamer. He had lived in a 
town of two thousand inhabitants, but Vicksburg 


54 


PEN PICTURES. 


had twelve thousand, and sat by the bank of a 
river one mile wide, and had from fifty to one 
hundred steamboats loading and unloading, com- 
ing and going at her wharf all the time. Had he 
not heard of all these things and much more of its 
many wonders? And now that the chance of see- 
ing with the eye and hearing with the ear, these 
sights and sounds, had been given only to be lost, 
dashed to the ground, taken away forever, — alas ! 
it was too hard ! What need to live ! What was 
left in life anyhow ! 

The mother stood looking at the silent but grief- 
stricken lad, and the unhappy boy gazed in a hope- 
less sort of way at the wall before him, which seemed 
to shut in and end every prospect in the world. 

At last trying with a dry tongue to moisten 
equally dry lips, the lad asked in a feeble, die-away 
voice. 

“Did the mother think it was too late to try to 
overtake Mrs. R and her boys?’’ 

“Yes,” came the reply, “they are now at the 
boat by this time.” 

“Would it be too late to reach the boat still?” 

The answer was that it was now after five 
o’clock, the boat left at six, the “landing” 
mile away, and he had to be dressed. 


was a 


WHY THEY WEPT. 


55 


The head sank lower, and the lump got larger. 

“Would she be willing to let him try to reach 
the boat?” 

“Yes, but she knew it was no earthly use to try. 
She also said that all this came from loitering and 
not coming directly home from school. That it 
was evidently a judgment on him for his careless- 
ness ; and anyhow it was a lesson which she fer- 
vently trusted he would never forget the longest 
day he lived.” 

He felt and admitted that he would never for- 
get it. Moreover, if he could get forgiveness on 
the part of home and heaven for his misdeed, he 
never would do so any more, etc., etc. 

The boy’s grief and disappointment seemed 
suddenly to put double sets of hands on the bodies 
of the family, and in less time than it takes to tell 
it, his face had been scoured and rubbed, his hair 
brushed and curled, and a neat fitting black suit, of 
jacket, knee pantaloons and broad white collar was 
upon him. And now with his cap jammed by lov- 
ing hands almost over his ears to make it stick, a 
small carpet bag containing some underwear thrust 
into his hand, and a dozen kisses aimed at him and 
most of them missing him, he was told to run, 
if not for his life, then at least for the boat ! 


56 


PEN PICTURES. 


They were synonymous with the boy. And he did 
run. He tarried for no second bidding. The lit- 
tle legs fairly twinkled over the ground. Two 
blocks away as he whirled around a corner, a 
glance over his shoulder revealed the entire family 
standing before the front gate, and gazing after 
him. 

He did not need this sight however to nerve 
him to greater exertion. The steamboat and Vicks- 
burg were amply sufficient. 

So he ran ; ran until the breath came in great 
gasps, till the blood sung in his ears, and till the 
heart which had arisen from the feet now appeared 
to have concluded to beat its way out of the body 
through the ribs. 

Owing to the weight of the traveling bag, and 
the long run, the lad had now and then to slacken 
his speed to get his breath, but the fear of being 
left would act like a fresh stimulant upon him, and 
he, with laboring respiration, and heart torn with 
conflicting emotions, would rush ahead again. 

Finally he reached the center of the town, 
which was half way from his mother’s house to the 
wharf, when he heard the solemn toll of the steam- 
boat bell signifying to the public that ten minutes 
remained before her departure. The boy partly 


WHY THEY WEPT. 


57 


through shame of being seen running on the street, 
and partly through exhaustion had subsided into a 
rapid walk, but the solemn notes of the bell sounded 
so much like the funeral knell of the Vicksburg 
trip that he broke forth into new efforts though his 
limbs were all trembling and his brain fairly spun 
around. 

There was much smiling on the streets as the 
lad with crimson face, loud breathing, and carpet 
bag thumping against his legs, sped as well as stag- 
gered on his way to the river. It was evident to 
all that the lad was trying to get somewhere 
whether he ever succeeded or not. 

Various calls and cries were uttered, and con- 
siderable advice given gratis to him by men ioung- 
ing on street corners, or sprawling in chairs and 
settees in front of stores, hotels and the livery 
stable. 

‘ ‘ Better give it up my lad ! ’ ’ 

“ No use sonny !” 

“ Too late my boy !” 

“ She’ll be gone before you can reach the wharl, 
youngster !” 

“ She’s tolling her last bell now !” 

“ Better wait for the next trip !”. 

Etc., etc., etc. 


5 » 


PEN PICTURES. 


The lad made no reply to any of these remarks, 
partly for lack of breath, and partly because the 
end in view allowed no time for rejoinder, repartee 
or any other kind of conversation. Action was 
what was wanted, and according to Demosthenes, 
action many times repeated. 

Farther down the street he heard the bell tolling 
again ; this time three strokes signified that five 
minutes were left. Oh if the captain and passengers 
knew how hard he was trying to reach the boat, 
they surely would wait five minutes more and save 
a boy from a broken heart. 

As the panting and now fairly exhausted lad 
turned out of Main Street upon the broad wharf 
front, with its long, brick warehouses, piles of cotton 
and rows of boxes and barrels, he could see the boat 
two hundred yards away, still at the shore, with 
great volumes of black smoke pouring out of the 
top of the big smoke stacks. The pilot was at the 
wheel, the captain was on the top deck, a crowd of 
passengers stood in the forecastle observing every 
detail of the last scene. The mate was thundering 
orders to the deck hands, who with a sing-song 
“ Yo-ho, Yo-e-oh, ” were drawing in the big stage 
plank. The side wheels of the steamer were giv- 
ing a restless occasional turn, churning the water 


WHY THEY WEPT. 


59 


into a foam and sending it in waves to the shore. 
A single narrow plank connected the boat with the 
bank, and a negro stood ready on the shore to cast 
off the last rope which bound the vessel to the 
wharf. 

All this was taken in like a flash, by the hot, 
gasping, crimson-faced, hoping, fearing, but still 
striving lad, as holding to the carpet sack, he act- 
ually staggered his way through piles of cotton 
bales and merchandise, across the rock-covered 
landing. 

The big bell tolled a single time, the negro cast 
oft' the rope, the wheels plowed into the water with 
the roar of escaping steam, the boat began to move 
backward while the deck hands seized the solitary 
plank to draw it on board, when the lad, up to this 
time unnoticed by the crew or passengers, put his 
foot upon it, made one desperate surge, and in the 
midst of astonished looks and exclamations, ran or 
rather tottered along the unsteady length and liter- 
ally tumbled on the deck of the boat when it was 
fully six feet from shore. At once rising up from 
the edge of the vessel he staggered to the foot of 
the main stairway, sank down on the first step, with 
his carpet sack between his knees, and burst into 

TEARS 1 


6o 


PEN PICTURES. 


Does any one ask why he wept? The reply is 
that there were a number of motives at work in his 
heart of an agitating character ; but the main cause 
of the overflow was that he had gotten there ! 

And so he mopped his face, and wept freely ; 
and bowed his head, and wept some more He 
could not reply to questions propounded to him by 
those standing around. He was too busy weeping. 

And yet the psychologist, or close student ot 
human nature could have said, this is not the sound 
of mourning, but the voice of singing do I hear. 

No, the boy was not sad. He was no sadder 
than Jacob was when he kissed Rachel and lifted up 
his voice and wept. The lad was in tears, but they 
were happy tears, relieving tears, delicious tears. 
He had made the trip, carpet sack and all. He had 
gotten there. He was, so to speak, elected. 

* * * * 

There was silence between the two friends for a 
few moments and then the writer said : » 

“ Do you think you have light on the tears shed 
those mornings after the election?” 

“ I certainly do. I can see the long run, the 
thumping carpet bag and what it stands for, the fear 
of being left, the warning bell, the narrow plank, 


WHY THEY WEPT. 


6 1 


and at last the getting on board, the sitting down 
on the first convenient bench or chair, and the re- 
lieving burst of tears in the thought, I have made 
the run, I am on the boat ; henceforth there is laid 
up for me a splendid position and fine salary all the 
days of my life.” 

Another pause ; when my friend said : 

“ I do not question but there are many tears for 
which men get credit, that could never stand the 
analysis of heaven.” 

“Undoubtedly. This is the case with a first 
successful effort on platform or in pulpit. With 
some temperaments, the instant the labor is over, 
there is a decided inclination to have a cry. Then 
there is a certain feeling of astonishment, and self 
gratulation with others that they got through at all ; 
and these mental states lead right up to a weeping 
fit with many people. But in these and other cases, 
the principle is the same. Some boat has been 
reached ^fter a hard struggle ; and the relief is so 
great with the conscious sudden ending of a pro- 
longed strain, and the blissful certainty that they 
are on board, and need to run no more — all this, 
by the working of a natural law produces a gush 
of sweet, delicious, relieving tears.” 

“ Precisely so,” said my friend, and then look- 


62 


PEN PICTURES. 


mg up with a smile of amusement he said, “ I sup- 
pose the longer the run, the heavier and bigger the 
carpet-sack, and the finer the boat — the deeper, 
sweeter and more enjoyable will be the weeping.’* 
“Undoubtedly,” I replied. 

“ Then may heaven help us all,” said he. 
“Amen and Amen,” said I. 


IV. 


A FEARFUL RETRIBUTION. 

gY THE word retribution we mean a kind of 
moral boomerang, and in this case a ghastly 
occurrence strikingly and shockingly similar to 
some fearful act committed upon another in the past 
months or years. Whoever has given the matter 
even slight attention can not but be impressed with 
the fact of such happenings, running like a black 
thread in the pattern of human life. After awhile 
we discover that not only curses, but deeds them 
selves come home like chickens to roost. In figu- 
rative language a bullet is shot which kills a man, 
and then, under this strange law of retribution, 
plows its way on through the murdered body, 
speeds on its mysterious path, striking here and 
glancing there, yet always in search for the person 
who fired the ball, until at last it encircles the earth 
in its flight, gets back to the place where it started, 
finds the slayer, pierces and kills him, and then 
falls in the dust to lie still forever ! 

The fact of retribution crops out in the Bible in 

numerous places. Jacob deceived his father with 
( 63 ) 


PEN PICUTRES. 


64 ' 

a garment sprinkled with blood, and long after- 
ward was deluded by his sons in an identical man- 
ner. The brethren of Joseph laid violent hands 
upon him, and lo ! years subsequently violent hands 
were laid upon themselves, and the very similarity 
of grasp instantly brought back by association the 
memory of the past, and they in sudden agony of 
mind remembered Joseph, and said one to another, 
“we are verily guilty concerning our brother, in 
that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he be- 
sought us, and we would not hear ; therefore is 
this distress come upon us.” 

The man who invented that instrument of tor- 
ment, the body-rack, died upon it ; and he who 
gave the guillotine to the world perished by its 
deadly blade. 

We knew a person who took advantage of an- 
other, shooting him when he was not expecting an 
assault, and emptying his gun in his back. The 
unfortunate being fell in front of a certain office on 
the leading street, and was placed upon a lounge 
taken out of the building, and was carried home to 
die. 

In less than three years this murderer was him- 
self killed by another man, and the remarkable 
features of the case were that he was not looking 


A FEARFUL, RETRIBUTION. 


6 5 


for an attack, was shot in the back, was attacked 
on the very spot where he had slain his victim, fell 
down before the same office, and was carried home 
on the identical lounge to die. 

A still more striking instance occurred in the 
county were the writer was born and raised. 

For several years the author of this book was 
connected with a country store some ten or twelve 
miles from the nearest town. Queer and wild 
characters, both white and black, used to visit the 
place on trading and loafing expeditions. An ex- 
ceedingly interesting book could be written on the 
strange events that took place there in the course 
of the three or four years of our stay. What with 
occasional horse-racing, drinking, fighting and 
some shooting, there were days that were anything 
but desirable and enjoyable. 

Among the rough looking men who visited the 
store was a tall, lank, sandy-haired man, with prom- 
inent cheek bones and sunken jaws and eyes. He 
always carried a gun with him, and which he never 
laid aside. Standing up, it stood by his side ; sit- 
ting down, it was placed across his lap as though 
ready to be used. He had a wary, uneasy look, 
and scarcely ever smiled. Repeatedly the writer 
has seen him leaning for hours against the front 


66 


PEN PICTURES. 


wall of the store, with his hands encircling the up- 
right barrel of his gun, and without speaking a 
a word, taking in what was going on around him, 
with no lighting up of the face or responsiveness 
whatever. After awhile he would purchase a plug 
or sack of tobacco, or some ammunition and ride oft 
as silently and spectrally as he came. The man 
had a history well known to many. He was a mur- 
derer. There had been something in the deed and 
there was something in the man that made people 
perfectly willing to give him a wide berth. 

He had fifteen years before been employed as an 
overseer on a large cotton plantation. He lived in 
a two-roomed cabin near the forest which skirted 
the field. The owner, a southern gentleman named 
North, would occasionally leave his hill place and 
visit his swamp plantation for a few days, and when 
he did so would stay in the cabin of his overseer, 
whose name was Oldham. Mr. North was greatly 
given to practical jokes and especially a spirit 
of teasing ; and when he had taken a mint julep 
or whisky toddy he was apt to carry his humor at 
the expense of another to excess. In one of his 
visits to the cabin he made his manager, Oldham, 
the target of his verbal arrows. 

The man was possessed of a morbidly sensitive 


A FEARFUL RETRIBUTION. 


67 


nature, and knowing nothing of a polished social 
life, was unable to defend himself with word weap- 
ons similar to those that North was using upon him. 
He was conscious of but one power superior to the 
man who was laughing at him, and that was brute 
force. Construing the badinage, which he did not 
altogether understand, into insult, and realizing his 
helplessness in language, and as fully conscious of 
his might in bone and muscle, the tiger nature sud- 
denly flashed into his eyes and sprang forth in his 
hands, and in another minute a dreadful deed was 
committed that morning upon the puncheon floor of 
the cabin gallery. 

There was but one witness of the ghastly act, and 
it was done so quickly that he had not time to pre- 
vent. The infuriated overseer caught his teasing 
employer up in his hands and dashed him upon the 
floor, then seizing his heavy rifle he brought the 
iron barrel, weighing fully twenty-five pounds, 
down with a terrible crash upon the skull. The 
smitten man. trying to arise from the floor gave 
one glance of horror at his slayer as the gun de- 
scended, and sank at his feet under the blow* with- 
out a word, and died almost instantly. 

Oldham had killed a true friend. 

The unhappy man fled from the country, and 


68 


PEN PICTURES. 


was gone for years. But by enlisting in the army 
during the Civil War he was pardoned, and after 
the surrender at Appomattox returned to his old 
neighborhood in the hills. 

He came back a man of few words and with a 
set air of melancholy in face and manner. He rarely 
spoke. He seemed to be like one expecting calam- 
ity or judgment to overtake him, and was constantly 
on the alert for self-protection and deliverance. 

Years went by ; over twenty since he killed 
North. He was now approaching fifty, but looked 
as if he was sixty. It was during these days we 
would see him in his occasional visits to the store. 

One day the tiger in him was aroused by some 
real or fancied injury done him by a negro man who 
lived a couple of miles from his home. Saddling 
a horse and placing his rifle on the pummel of the 
saddle he rode toward the cabin of the colored man 
to take vengeance. 

The negro saw him coming, and the two men 
met on the road near the yard gate. Both were 
armed. Oldham lifted his gun to shoot, when his 
animal taking fright at the sudden motion swerved 
to one side and threw his rider to the ground. In 
falling Oldham’s foot became entangled in the stir- 
rup and he could not at once arise. The negro saw 


A FEARFUL RETRIBUTION. 


69 

his advantage, and running quickly picked up 
Oldham’s fallen gun, and standing over his pros- 
trate foe, raised the heavy barrel high in the air 
before the gaze of the panic-stricken man. 

It was only for an instant ! But who can tell 
what was in that moment to the man on the gronnd. 
Here was retribution indeed ! Here was what he 
had been watching against, and flying from for over 
twenty years. He was being slain exactly as he 
had killed North. The negro was standing over 
him as he had stood over his victim. He was about 
to be struck with the heavy barrel of the rifle as he 
had struck his old time friend. He himself was look- 
ing up with horror, even as North had looked up at 
him in horror. He had just one moment to live, as 
his employer had, and crash ! 

The heavy gun barrel had broken in the skull of 
the unfortunate man ; the unprepared soul was 
swept into eternity ; and the murderer and the mur- 
dered were together once more, after the flight of 
nearly a quarter of a century. 


V. 


MR. BROWN AND MR. BRAUN. 

T WAS leaving a large city to live in one still 
1 larger. Among the callers and visitors who 
came to see me, for various reasons, before I left, 
was a lady dressed in deep black and accompanied 
by her daughter, a girl of sixteen. 

The lady who appeared to be between thirty and 
forty years of age was not uncomely, but had nat- 
urally a melancholy face, and an equally melan- 
choly voice. After sundry conversational prelim- 
inaries she told me that she understood I was 
going to move to the large city already referred 
to, and though a stranger she made bold to request 
a great favor at my hands. She said that her hus- 
band four years before had taken their little boy and 
gone into business in that same city ; that at first he 
had written regularly, then irregularly, but now 
fqr months he had ceased to correspond with them 
at home at all. That every kind of written appeal 
was ignored by him, though he was still in that 
place, and the letters evidently reached him, for 

they would otherwise have been returned by the 
( 70 ) 


MR. BROWN AND MR. BRAUN. 7 1 

postofflce authorities. Her request of me was to 
call upon him as soon as I could after my arrival 
and use my influence to get his consent to come 
back home to his wife and daughter. The address 
she gave me was Mr. Brown, manager of some 
chemical works, located on the river side in the 
southern part of the city. 

Under the impulse of the moment, and full of 
sympathy for the sorrowful woman before me, I 
promised to pay the visit and deliver the exhorta- 
tion. After she left, and especially after I arrived 
in the aforesaid city the magnitude and delicacy of 
the ta.sk grew upon me. I became sorry that I 
had promised. Who was I, that I could straighten 
a domestic affair where the two most interested had 
failed. And when did a man ever come out satis- 
factorily to himself where he meddled in the pri- 
vate matters of husband and wife. 

The more I thought about it, the less inclined I 
felt to seeing Mr. Brown, and so the days slipped 
by through repeated postponements of the visit. 
At last came a letter from Mrs. Brown, asking me 
if I had forgotten my promise, and urging me to 
go at once. 

One morning, a week after the arrival of the 
letter, I girded up my resolution, summoned what 


72 PEN PICTURES. 

brass I could for the occasion, and took the street 
cars for the distant part of the city where the fac- 
tory was located in which Mr. Brown was a trusted 
officer. 

On the cars I asked the conductor if he knew 
of any large chemical works on the southern side 
of the city? He said he did, and that he went 
very near the place. Then would he have the 
goodness to put me off as near the spot as he 
could? Yes, he would. 

In due time he stopped the car at a corner, and 
pointed out some large buildings on the river side, 
a couple of blocks away, as the factory desired. 

Accosting a policeman on the street, I asked if 
he knew the name of the manager or superintend- 
ent of the chemical works just before us. He 
replied that he thought his name was Brown. 

Without more ado, I pushed down the road 
which descended steeply toward the river, turned 
the shoulder of a great bank or bluff' and crossed a 
long, narrow bridge, one hundred feet in length, 
and that ended on a line with the second story of 
the building. Tapping at the door I was admit- 
ted by a nice looking clerk into a cozy, well- 
furnished office, with revolving chairs and busi- 
ness desks, green-shaded electric lights, etc. 


MR. BROWN AND MR. BRAUN. 73 

With considerable uneasiness of spirit, and 
some nervousness of manner, I said : 

“Is Mr. Brown in?” 

“ Yes sir, he is in the main building, but he will 
be back in the office in a few moments. Be seated, 
sir.” 

I sank into a seat feeling a little weak about the 
knees, and first crossing and then uncrossing the 
lower limbs, sighed like a grampus, studied the 
bronze clock which ticked loudly on the mantel, 
moistened my lips, and made several dry swallows. 

In a few moments a well-groomed business man 
in middle life came through an inner door into the 
office. With a swift glance I took in the respect- 
able figure, the well-fitting suit of gray, the spot- 
less linen, the Burnside whiskers, and thought “ I 
am certainly in for it. ’ ’ 

Taking his desk chair, and turning upon me he 
said in the quick tones peculiar to very busy men. 

“ What can I do for you, sir? ” 

Glancing around and seeing that the clerk was 
out I said. 

“ I suppose you are Mr. Brown? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Mr. Brown, my errand is a very disagreeable 


one. 


74 


PEN PICTURES. 


Here I paused while the gentleman himself 
looked very gravely and coldly upon me. 

“ Mr. Brown,” I continued, swallowing quite a 
lump in my throat, and now determined to get 
through the distasteful business expeditiously-r- 
“ Mr. Brown I have come to beg you to return to 
your wife in New Orleans.” 

If Mr. Brown appeared expectant before, he 
looked astounded now. He seemed under strong 
emotion and unable to reply. All of which 
looked very much like conscious and overtaken 
guilt. For a full moment he sat gazing fixedly at 
me, and then almost gasped : 

“ What did you say, sir ! ” 

“I said, Mr. Brown, that I have come to beg 
you to return to your wife in New Orleans. I do 
this at her own request. ’ ’ 

Mr. Brown’s face at this moment looked as if 
he was close to a case of apoplexy, while his eyes 
assumed a bulging appearance. At last he fairly 
blurted out the words : 

“ What do you mean, sir? I’ve got no wife in 
New Orleans. I have never been in New Orleans 
in my life ! ’ ’ 

“Isn’t your name Brown? ” 

“My name is Braun.” 


MR. BROWN AND MR. BRAUN. 


75 


“ Braun? ” I asked, with a great misgiving in 
my heart. 

“ Yes, sir — Braun.” 

“ I thought the policeman and the clerk said 
your name was Brown?” 

“ I don’t care what you thought sir — I know 
my name is Braun !” 

At this moment I was fervently wishing that a 
subterranean passage might open beneath my chair, 
that I might suddenly vanish from view and be seen 
no more in those parts. 

How I got away I can hardly tell , except I remem- 
ber that I said “I was sorry” and “that I had made 
an unfortunate mistake,” etc., and so I stammered, 
and sidled and backed out of the office leaving Mr. 
Braun standing in the middle of the floor and look- 
ing like he did not know whether to laugh or get 
mad, or have me arrested as an escaped lunatic. 

How long that narrow bridge was that morning ! 
Long before, it seemed endless now. As I walked 
along its interminable length I had a dreadful sen- 
sation that a number of curious and amused eyes 
were watching me from the office window. A hasty 
glance backward over the shoulder proved that the 
suspicion was true, several faces were there and all 
were laughing. 


7 6 


PEN PICTURES. 


At last, after two minutes of time and a century 
of feeling, I stepped off the end of the bridge, and 
as I turned the bluff, putting thereby fifty feet of 
solid earth between me and their faces, I took the 
first easy breath I had drawn in the last fifteen 
minutes. 

Going up on a business street I stepped into a 
large drug store and asked the owner several ques- 
tions. 

Have you more than one chemical factory in 
this part of the city?” 

“Yes, sir,” was his reply, “ we have two. One 
is close by just under the river bank there, 
and the other is ten or twelve blocks farther 

down.” 

“Do you know the name of the managers?” 

“Yes, I deal at both places. Mr. Braun is the 
manager of the one by the river, and Mr. Brown is 
head of the one farther down town.” 

I asked nothing more ; I was too sick at heart 
to put another question. I saw at once my egre- 
gious blunder. Thinking there was but one chem- 
ical factory, and misled by the similarity in 
pronunciation of the names, Braun and Brown, 
I had made the distressing mistake just de- 
scribed. 


MR. BROWN AND MR. BRAUN. 


77 


I was in no mood to visit any more chemical 
works, and although the druggist kindly offered to 
give me the clearest directions, so that I could not 
miss the other and more distant one, yet I kindly 
but steadily refused all proffered assistance. 

No, I wanted no more Browns. The one I 
wanted had turned out to be Braun, and who 
could tell but the second might prove to^ be Bone 
and Muscle, and that manifested in a remarkable 
and painful way. 

No, I had enough of it, and so turned my face 
back toward the great smoky city, sadder and wiser, 
and determined from the bottom of my heart that 
from that time I would have nothing to do with 
chemical works, and parted husbands and wives. 
No, indeed ; no more chemicals and no more 
Browns for me. As for women who had lost their 
husbands, let them find the domestic wanderers 
themselves. They caught them once before, let 
them do so again. Then the absurdity, if not the 
cruelty, of asking a busy man to find a person by 
the name of Brown in a city of nearly a million 
inhabitants, and where there were certainly a hun- 
dred Browns at the slightest computation. No, 
sir, or rather, no, madam, I resign to-day, with all 
its honors and dishonors, the high and responsible 


7 8 PEN pictures. 

office of husband hunter for forsaken wives. Some 
doubtless have gifts in that direction, but from bit- 
ter experience I am convinced that such a work is 
not my mission , and that in a word, it is not my 
forte. 

* * * * * 

A copy of the letter sent down the railroad to 
one of the interested parties is necessary for the 
proper concluding of this remarkable piece of his- 
tory. 

Mrs. Brown — Dear Madam : 

I have endeavored to find your husband and suc- 
ceeded only in a measure. The man I visited 
turned out not to be your husband. The other 
man is your husband. 

I do not know that I make myself altogether 
clear in this matter, but the fact is that I have got- 
ten badly mixed up in the whole affair. 

I am convinced it would be best for you to come 
on. You certainly could not make a worse failure 
than I have made. 

With regards and regrets, I am, 

Respectfully yours, * * 

Here endeth one of the lessons of life. 


VI. 


THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. 

^pHE author was once visiting in a poverty- 
stricken part of a city where, under Conference 
appointment, he was stationed. While sitting on 
the steps of an humble home exchanging some 
words with the good woman who lived there, she 
happened to speak of a time in the “ fifties ” when 
the town was scourged by yellow fever, and hun- 
dreds of citizens died. She gave an incident of 
the plague which made a profound impression on 
the writer, and is here transcribed as a pen picture. 

She said that with the daily increasing death- 
rate, a darker gloom fell upon the devoted place. 
The only sounds to be heard were the tolling of 
bells, which by and by were discontinued on ac- 
count of the depressing effect upon the sick, and 
the roll of the wheels of hearse or wagon going 
with the dead to the cemetery or returning there- 
from. Most of the people who had not fled from 
town, remained shut up in their houses, and only 

now and then a passerby could be seen. 

( 79 ) 


8o 


PEN PICTURES. 


One day she was standing at her window when 
suddenly she saw a wagon driven rapidly up in 
front of a large empty house just opposite her own. 
Two men leaped out and lifting a third man, a 
yellow fever patient, from the wagon, they bore 
him into the house. 

They next carried in a cot, and then she saw 
them place the sick man upon it, close the door, 
and leave the house. Either the men forgot the 
poor creature, or they themselves were stricken 
down with the plague, but for some reason they 
never came back, and the man was left alone and 
uncared for. The woman could see that he was 
in a bare unfurnished room of the vacant house, 
and as hour followed hour and no one came to his 
relief, her distress was great, and she could not 
keep from the window, through which she looked 
across the street toward the forgotten sufferer. She 
could just see the lower end of the cot, and hence 
only a part of the human form which rested upon it. 

Humanity as well as Christianity pleaded witlp. 
her to go over and help the forsaken man, but she 
was afraid and would not. Still she could not ban- 
ish the thought of the loneliness and need of the 
sufferer, and so found herself repeatedly at the 
window looking with a heavy heart and condemn- 


THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. 


81 


ing conscience in the direction of the unfortunate 
being. 

In the afternoon of the second day, while at 
her old post, glancing for the hundredth time 
in that direction, suddenly she saw him arise, 
stagger to the window, and leaning against 
it, look up and down the street. He then turned 
a steadfast gaze toward her , and their eyes met ! 

A great horror filled her as she felt the appeal- 
ing eyes of the dying man fixed on her. She said 
she came near dropping on the floor in a swoon. 

In another moment the unhappy being turned 
and walked back toward his bed, fell upon it, and lay 
motionless. She remained rooted, spellbound, hor- 
ror-stricken to the spot for quite a while, a prey to 
the most conflicting and agonizing feelings. 

Two hours afterward several men drove up to 
the house, went in, and found the man was dead ! 
* * * * * * 

We will never forget the distress of the woman 
as she related the above history. It had been 
over a quarter of a century ago, but the scene 
seemed still fresh before her, and the horror as 
great as if it had only recently happened. 

We have since then thought how the melan- 
choly occurrence illustrates facts and conditions 


82 


PEN PICTURES. 


which should come, and do come very near to us 
all. 

We thought of men and women who have life 
burdens and heart sickness to carry, that most peo- 
ple do not seem to have noticed. The wagon with 
the men in it drive off and do not come back, car- 
riages roll by, pedestrians do not so much as glance 
in the direction of the sufferer, those living nearest 
by fail to recognize that a tragedy is taking place, 
that a life with all its hopes, strength and possibili- 
ties is ebbing away, and going unattended and un- 
relieved . 

Who has not had such a look turned upon him 
from some face on the street, or from an acquaint- 
ance in the social circle. Who has not seen the man 
at the window ; recognized an awful sorrow in the 
countenance ; and felt the silent appeal of passing 
eyes. And yet we have allowed these wretched 
ones to go back to their lonely lots and lie down in 
unrelieved suffering to die. 

Chatterton, the poet marvel of England, died 
of starvation. A gifted authoress, in this country of 
plenty, perished some years ago of actual want. Her 
diary is heartbreaking to read, as she describes her 
hunger pangs. A number of suicides have left let- 
ters with the statement that they were alone in the 


THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. 83 

world, no one seemed to care for them, they could 
not get work, and so there was nothing left except 
to die. 

A friend of the writer, unhappy in married life, 
and meeting with business reverses one after an- 
other, “ came to the window.” He looked in sev- 
eral directions one morning for relief, but it did not 
come. Some one remembered afterward meeting 
him in a car and recalled the distressed look which 
he cast upon all, but the observer himself was too 
busy to cross over and minister to him. In two hours 
after he was found dead on his bed. 

A Southern merchant lately made the following 
confession. He said that he was purchasing goods 
for his store in one of our large cities, that one bit- 
terly cold afternoon just before dark, he was accos- 
ted near his hotel by a boy seven or eight years of 
age, who begged him for help, telling him that he 
was cold and hungry. The merchant was cold him- 
self, in a hurry to get to his room, worried about 
business affairs, and roughly told him to go away 
and let him alone. The boy’s eyes filled with tears 
as he turned away without a word and passed into 
a side street bordering the hotel. It proved that 
this was his last effort. 

All that evening the poor little pinched face and 


8 4 


PEN PICTURES. 


blue eyes of the lad filled with tears, would come 
up to the mind of the man. He wished twenty 
times before and after he went to bed that he had 
helped him. As he heard the rush of the winter wind 
that night and caught the rattle of the sleet against 
the window, he realized how he would feel if that 
suffering one on the street was his own son. 

Next morning while walking through the office 
toward the breakfast hall, a stir and conversational 
buzz among the waiters and a few guests caused 
him to ask the reason. The reply was that a little 
boy had been found frozen to death under a side 
stairway of the hotel, and the coroner had been 
sent for. 

With a strange sinking at the heart he went 
around the building with a number of gentlemen 
guests and there on the stone flags, partly under a 
small projecting porch floor, was the child who 
had begged him for help, cold in death. There 
was the same little, pinched, suffering face, and 
the same blue eyes wide open looking at him. But 
there was no light in them now, nor had they any 
tears. The lips that quivered before him just a few 
hours before were still enough now. He had been 
the last man the waif had begged for help, and 
he had refused. Hungry, homeless, as he turned 


THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. 85 

out to be, and friendless, the child crept under the 
stairway and froze to death. While the merchant 
was in his warm bed, the lad was freezing not fifty 
yards from him. 

It was the yellow fever story over again. The 
face had been pressed to the window, and looked 
for help. Another face had seen it. The eyes of 
both met. No help was given, and the first face 
turned away and laid down to die. 

But, as we said, there are other hungers, besides 
that of the body. There are other things that peo- 
ple must have besides food if they would live. 
Men and women die not only for lack of bread, but 
for want of sympathy, friendship, appreciation, 
kindness and love. 

The author once knew a business man whose 
life load was exceedingly heavy. In addition to 
having an extravagant family to support, and trifling 
relatives on both sides of the house to take care of, 
he had hundreds of clerks and laborers under him, 
and many interests to look after. He was con- 
tinually in demand to counsel and direct, to revise 
and supervise. Such a life calling for mental 
self-collectedness and sound judgment and self- 
restraint, naturally produced a grave, determined 
and thoughtful face. 


86 


PEN PICTURES. 


Besides this, his wife was a handsome and fas- 
cinating woman, and evidently had no love for 
him. Her fancy turned to younger men, and to 
one in especial whom her husband employed, and 
upon whom she showered an abundance of atten- 
tions, sitting up late to let him in the front door at 
night, and preparing dainty little dishes to tempt 
his appetite. The husband, who had been the 
benefactor of the young man, and whose money 
provided a luxurious home for all, was as com- 
pletely neglected and ignored by her as though 
he was an outsider, and the youth with whom she 
was infatuated was the head of the household. 

Of course the husband saw and felt it all ; but 
he never deviated in his courtly treatment of his 
wife, and never uttered a word of complaint to a 
living creature. But such a burden did not serve 
to soften the lines and lighten the lineaments of an 
already grave and melancholy countenance. 

In the last few years of his life he suffered un- 
speakable agony from a peculiar lung trouble. We 
have seen his face become in a few moments drawn 
with pain, and colorless as marble ; and have be- 
held him prostrated with physical suffering in 
office or room, while the woman was taking a 
drive in her carriage, or sitting in the parlor or 


THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. 87 

dining-room entertaining the youth already men- 
tioned. 

The face of this business man finally became a 
marvel to the writer in its lines of moral strength 
and self-mastery. He was not a Christian, did 
not know the Savior, was a man of the world ; and 
yet in his self-control he was showing himself 
greater than he that taketh a city, and putting to 
shame many who were in pew and in pulpit. 

Several times the life cares and business burdens 
and heart sorrows seemed to get the mastery, and 
suddenly we saw the anguished soul of the man 
looking out of the dark, tortured eyes. If a human 
figure had appeared in them, wringing its hands 
and crying for mercy, the vision could scarcely have 
been more startling and moving than the agonized 
expression which he turned upon us. Once we saw 
him cast it upon his wife. She did not see the look 
as she was laughing at the time over her own 
awkward effort to smoke a cigarette, which had 
been lighted and handed her by a gentleman. In 
another instant the face was composed again, 
and a few minutes later he uttered a courtly good 
evening, went unattended to the hall, put on 
his overcoat unassisted, and, opening the door, 
walked away unnoticed down the darkened street 


88 


PEN PICTURES. 


to his city office where three hours hard work 
awaited him. 

It was not long after this that he died. 

In a word, the face was seen for a moment 
at the window. It looked in vain for help, and 
then turning silently away, the man laid down 
to die a 


VII. 


A DOWN TOWN OFFICE. 

/AN one of my trips I landed in a large city of 
^ several hundred thousand inhabitants. Having 
occasion to visit a dentist I secured the name and 
number of a good one, and in due time found my- 
self on the fifth floor of a monster modern build- 
ing and wandering down the marble-floored hall 
to the office designated. 

A young girl of seventeen, whom I caught flirt- 
ing with a young man of spidery extremities and 
a gosling voice, told me that Dr. Klem was absent 
but would be back in a few minutes. 

The waiting-room and office were both very 
handsomely and tastefully furnished. Two oil 
paintings and several pastels hung on the walls, 
while easy chairs, a richly carved table loaded 
with magazines, and a large upright music box 
were present to contribute their diversion and con- 
solation to the visitors who came to pay their pain- 
ful visits. 

The Doctor soon arrived and at once impressed 

me as a man of considerable mental force and thor- 
( 89 ) 


9 ° 


PEN PICTURES. 


oughly well bred. He had a pale, intellectual face, 
with dark eyes, and black beard trimmed close, 
after the Vandyke style. His dress was a busi- 
ness suit of iron gray, while three large links of 
a gold chain appeared at his vest. His manner at 
once put me at ease, and in a minute impressed me 
with perfect confidence in his professional ability. 

As he proceeded in his work, my eye took in 
the lines of strength about his face and mouth, the 
conviction deepening all the while that he was a 
man who had been endowed with great self-control, 
or had learned it in some school of sorrow. I 
also detected signs of physical weariness, and ven- 
tured to ask him if he was not an overworked 
man. 

His reply was, that frequently he was ten and 
twelve hours a day on his feet, that his business 
had greatly increased, so that often he had missed 
his mid-day meal, and frequently did night work 
to fulfill his engagements ; that all this, he supposed, 
with the bent attitude of the body in his dental 
task, was doubtless telling on him. 

Just then the office girl announced the presence 
of his wife, and the inner door opened, causing 
the music box to play, by some electric connection, 
one of the popular street ballads. 


A DOWN TOWN OFFICE. 


9 l 


The lady who entered was good looking, but 
had lost a certain freshness hard to describe. She 
was thirty years of age, but looked older. Her 
clothes were of the best material, but they lacked 
a harmonizing of colors, while several inches of a 
white skirt protruded on one side. A large lock 
of her blonde hair was straggling down the back of 
her neck, and her tan shoes needed a polishing. 

The woman had a deep wrinkle on her brow, a 
nervous motion of the hands, and a querulous, 
almost whining tone of voice. The Doctor gravely 
glanced up as she entered, and as quickly let his 
eyes fall on his work the next second. 

“ Where was Jennie when I came here an hour 
ago?” she almost demanded. 

“She went to her luncheon,” replied the hus- 
band, as he drilled with great care a small cavity 
in a frail tooth. 

We could hear the wife fidgeting around in the 
outer room. “ Office so dirty,” came the sentence 
like a steel arrow through the glass partition. 

“Yes, the wind blew some dust up from the 
street through the windows, but not much.” This 
was said with effort, for he had delicate work on 
hand needing all his attention. I wondered that 
the woman could not see it. 


9 2 


PEN PICTURES. 


“You may think it all right, but I think the 
room is simply dreadful,” was the minnie-ball 
answer. 

After this we could hear her fidgeting about the 
outer apartments. „ 

“ Whose porcelain box is this? ” 

“Mine.” 

“ Where did you get it ” 

“A gentleman friend gave it to me,” 

“I’ll take it home for the parlor. You don’t 
want it.” 

“All right,” was the calm reply. 

Then followed the sound of drawers being pulled 
open, doors of desks shut, etc., etc. 

She had just come from a nobby restaurant and 
was fresh and exhilarated from a cup of tea that 
had been flanked by a chicken sandwich and a 
large slice of strawberry cake. The dentist had 
been so busy that day that he had not found time 
to get his lunch. It was now nearly four o’clock 
and the man had a tired, faint look in his face, 
though the square chin, steady eyes, and firm 
mouth showed that the spirit was unconquered and 
was still in the line of habitual self-control. 

It took but a few glances from the patient 
in the chair to see that the domestic magpie, hop- 


A DOWN TOWN OFFICE. 


93 


ping around in her faded beauty and trailing un- 
derskirt, was a greater trial and suffering to the 
man than the ten hours long work without rest or 
food. 

He had just bought a house for her that day, 
and the half hour which he usually gave to his 
luncheon he had spent in a lawyer’s office arranging 
deeds that conveyed the property as his gift to her 
in fee simple. This explained his absence from 
the office on our first arrival. 

The woman of course was glad about the prop- 
erty, but at the same time took it very much as a 
matter of course. And here, at a time when from 
the nature of the work he was doing the man needed 
to be perfectly unmolested, she was firing vol- 
leys of questions at him as to when they would 
move, and who would move them, what it would 
cost, etc., etc., etc, 

Then came the old querulous, whining tone 
again. 

“I don’t know where I’ll put the base burner.” 

“We’ll find a place.” 

Some more fidgeting and then, 

“It’s a pretty house, but oh the trouble in 
moving. I’m sure I’ll be sick and in bed after it’s 
all over.” 


94 


PEN PICTURES. 


No sound but the faint drill of one of the 
dentist’s instruments. 

Then the female drill began again, 

“I wonder who is going to move us? If that 
man Johnson does it again, we won’t have a sound 
piece of furniture left in the house.” 

“I’ve secured Higgins to do it,” said the quiet 
voice of the Doctor over me. Glancing up I thought 
the lines of the face were much deeper than when I 
first saw them. 

“Well, I suppose I must go,” said the Nerve 
Drill in skirts. “I believe I will run around and 
take a peep at the house before I go home. And, 
oh, don’t forget to stop at the grocer’s and order a 
sugar-cured ham ; I want some for supper. And 
where do you reckon Jimmie has gone? he didn’t 
come home from school to-day. 

The Dentist replied to all his wife said, kindly, 
but with a wearied accent that was unspeakably 
pathetic. The patient marvelled how he could 
perform the work he was doing and stand the 
hoppings of that domestic magpie around the two 
offices and answer the querulous notes she dropped, 
as she skipped and skimmed about. 

By and by she left. 

Later on the office girl announced a lady in the 


A DOWN TOWN OFFICE. 


95 


ante-room. The doctor disappeared, and in a few 
moments reappeared with the request that I would 
vacate the chair several minutes while he gave relief 
to a young lady who was suffering from the pres- 
sure of a small gold plug. 

The young lady came in, a handsome, stylish 
looking girl, and evidently from the best social 
circles. Her tailor-made gown fitted to perfection, 
the plume on her hat drooped becomingly over 
her dark eyes. She held an American Beauty in 
her hand, which she gave to the Doctor. He 
placed the rose in a glass of water on a cabinet 
shelf near him, and a pleased smile came over his 
somewhat melancholy face for a moment. 

A very excellent thing is a soft, low voice in a 
woman. And the girl in the chair had it. Even 
when the doctor with dexterous fingers and instru- 
ments was relieving the pressure of the gold filling 
in the sensitive tooth, and would put short queries, 
her equally terse replies, in spite of finger gags 
and other mufflers of speech, would be little 
murmuring sounds full of liquid music. 

As she rested upon the crimson cushions of the 
operating chair, the lines of her fine figure were 
full of grace and beauty. The aroma of the rose 
filled the room, but the perfume of the flower had 


9 6 


PEN PICTURES. 


a greater rival in a sweeter fragrance still, and 
that was the subtile, softening, refining atmos- 
phere or influence of a womanly woman. 

A canary bird commenced singing in its cage, 
a south wind blew gently in through the open 
window, and a hand-organ, from a distant street 
corner, could just be heard playing, “The Sweetest 

Story ever Told.” ^ 

\ 

* * * * 

Two months after this, in another brief visit to 
the city, I happened to be passing the office and 
started to enter, intending to express my satisfac- 
tion with the dental work done before and to 
inform Dr. Klem that on my next trip to the city 
I would call upon him to make some additional 
touches. But as I paused at the door I saw the 
Doctor was engaged, and turned away. In that 
moment’s pause, however, I was struck with a 
change I observed in him. The side of his face 
was turned toward me, but its pallor was plainly 
noticeable from the door, while the lines about the 
still strong face were graver and deeper than when 
I last saw him. I noticed also that a fresh 
American Beauty was blooming where we had 
seen him place the first flower. 


A DOWN TOWN OFFICE. 


97 


Several months subsequent to the scene just 
mentioned, I ascended the. elevator of the Big Sky 
Scraper and, reaching the Doctor’s floor, walked 
down the corridor toward his office. To my great 
surprise the door was shut and locked as well. 
From the transom overhead I could see there was 
no light in the office, but all was somber and 
still. There was no answer to repeated raps, and 
I could not get my consent to peep through the 
key hole. 

Just then the gosling young man I had seen on my 
first visit was hurriedly passing. So I said quickly, 

“Where is Doctor Klem?” 

“Why,” he said, hastening on, but turning 
upon me a look of surprise, “Haven’t you heard 
about the Doctor?” 

“No — what is it?” 

“John!” cried a loud voice up the corridor, 
and the gosling vanished in a distant office. 

As I stood wondering in the hall, two ladies 
drew near, and as they passed Dr. Klem’s door, 
they glanced at the sign and one said, 

“Isn’t is sad about Dr. Klem?” 

“Dreadful,” replied the other. 

“They say,” continued the first, “that Mrs. 
Klem is perfectly crushed. 


9 8 


PEN PICTURES. 


“Yes. Poor thing, I don’t wonder.” 

The ladies swept on, and I followed them, de- 
bating in my mind the propriety of stopping and 
asking them to relieve my anxiety about the 
Doctor, but before I could decide they turned into 
an office partly filled with ladies and gentlemen, 
and the door closed upon them. Before I lost 
sight of them they had dropped two other words, but 
for my life I could not certainly tell what they were. 

One was “brokenhearted” or “departed.” 
The other was “dead” or “fled.” 

I made one more effort before leaving the 
building to discover the truth. As I got to the 
foot of the elevator, and people were rushing out 
of it, others hastening in, the signal bell ringing from 
every one of the fifteen floors above us, and the 
elevator youth looking worn and worried, I made 
bold to ask him, just as he was about to take his 
upward flight with a crowded car, 

“Did you know Dr. Klem?” 

“Yes, of course I did.” 

“Well, what’s the matter with him, and what 
has become of him?” 

The youth gave me a strange indescribable look, 
touched his lever and shot out of sight with his 
passengers, without having opened his lips. 


VIII. 


CHARACTERS IN EBONY. 

'pHE negro, whether educated, half taught, or 
ignorant, is an interesting character. When by 
the work of schools and universities, however, he 
approaches the Caucasian in intelligence, culture, 
polish and general habits of life, the peculiar charm 
wielded by the untutored African personality of 
course disappears. 

That charm, existing as it does in dialect, pro- 
nunciation, accent, mannerisms, native drollery 
and wit, is naturally changed, if not destroyed by 
the approximation of the one race to the other. So 
in the city negro of to-day, coming out of free 
school, high school and college, the peculiarities 
fail to appear which so impressed the observer of a 
preceding generation. Hence many thus con- 
fronted, will marvel over past descriptions and fail 
to see the place for tears and smiles once so freely 
accorded. For just as the Indian is disappearing 
under the western horizon, so the old-time negro 
character is vanishing through the portals of the 
schools. 


( 99 ) 


IOO 


PEN PICTURES, 


In rural districts, however, and in certain lowly 
suburbs of towns and cities in the South, the 
“darky” can still be seen. Enough' scraps and 
bits of cloth are left to give a very fair idea ol the 
kind of goods that once filled the store. 

Of course the country negro is nearer the straight 
goods, and hence the most interesting, but the class 
of colored people that stand midway between the 
educated town brother, and the uneducated tiller 
of the soil, constitutes a study in itself and is brim- 
ful of interest. 

The semi or partially educated negro, occupy- 
ing mainly a kind of middle ground, but making 
in speech and life sudden inroads and excursions, 
first into one realm and then into the other, keeps 
the mind in a state of perpetual astonishment, while 
the general conglomeration at times of all the 
parts in a single individual before us, makes some- 
thing so rich and unique that the mind thrills at 
the possession of what is both social phenomena 
and psychological treasure. 

One feature of the character now alluded to, is 
a mania for big words. Sometimes the proper one 
would be aimed at, but through ignorance of the 
dictionary on the one hand, and a certain readiness 
of mental furnishing to remedy the defect on the 


CHARACTERS IN EBONY. 


IOI 


other, that word would come forth from the lips of 
the speaker so strangely beheaded and re-headed, 
so betailed and curtailed, that it would have re- 
quired the gravity of an Anchorite and the face of 
Sphinx to have preserved an unmoved or unsmiling 
front. 

A few weeks spent in the 44 Big House,” as the 
family mansion was called, or a few months in 
school, were amply sufficient to produce the will- 
ingness, if not the ability, to mouth large words 
and attempt various elegancies of speech. The 
English language was truly a vast and billowy ex- 
panse, but the class we speak of never hesitated to 
fling themselves upon the waves, and, of course, 
would invariably sink. They, however, got used 
to drowning. To change the figure, the night was 
dark and the country before them broad, uncertain 
and unknown, but this did not in the least deter 
thjem, but verbally packing up and folding their 
arms as an Arab did his tent, they went forth, and 
like one of old, knew not whither they went. 

One of this class, of the female variety, returned 
to her humble cabin one night quite affected 
and inflated with the atmosphere of the palace-like 
home where she had been at work. The elegant 
demeanor, stately manners and dignified way of 


102 


PEN PICTURES. 


giving orders and directions about the house had 
profoundly impressed her. She had drunk in the 
spirit of the mansion, and carried away its lordly 
airs and doings as one would wear a garment. 
The robe had not dropped from her even after she 
entered her own little hovel and was surrounded 
by her noisy brats who were scampering around 
on the floor. A majestic wave of the hand which 
she had brought with her, and a deep-toned com- 
mand to make less noise had been all unheeded. 
Whereupon, with elevated chin and appropriate 
pose of body, she thus delivered herself: 

“I’ll let yer know when I say thus and forth , 
hit’s got to be did ! Do yer hyer me? ” 

They heard her this time, and were brought 
into immediate silence, whether by the woman’s 
manner or the remarkable expression, “ thus 
and forth,” we do not know ; only they were sub- 
dued. 

Another one of th.s class, while making a fire 
in the bedroom of his employer early one morning, 
was expatiating upon a robbery in the neighbor- 
hood the night before. While narrating the occur- 
rence, he would alternately stoop to blow the 
embers into a flame, and then rise to a kneeling 
position upon the hearth to hear and answer ques- 


CHARACTERS IN EBONY. 


103 


tions about the absorbing incident from his em- 
ployer who had not yet arisen. 

“Who do they think broke into the house, 
Sandy?” 

“ Dey say, Mars John, hit was midnight magru- 
ders.” 

There was a suspicious snort from the bed, and 
then a choking kind of utterance, 

“You mean midnight marauders, Sandy.” 

“Yes, sah, dat’s it, midnight magruders,” and 
Sandy stooped down to blow the fire, unmindful of 
the shaking bed, and inwardly delighted over the 
possession of a new and imposing colloquial term. 

A third individual in this class had been to town 
with the market wagon. On his return, his mis- 
tress questioned him as to whether he had seen a 
certain lady friend of hers, a Mrs. Judge Some- 
body. 

“ Oh yessum, I seed de Judge’s wife herse’f. 
En I tole her dat you was er wishin’ ter see her, 
en she eggserved dat she would like ter see you.” 

The quivering eyelids, rolling head, unctuous 
voice and evident pride with which the sable speaker 
delivered himself of the word “ eggserved,” made 
a picture too exquisitely rich and refreshing for 
anyone to properly describe by pen, pencil or 


104 


PKN PICTURES. 


brush. The word, “ eggserved,” however, was 
promptly captured, framed and hung up in the 
family gallery, so to speak. Often it was taken 
down and used in certain domestic junctures and 
happenings, and always with powerful effect. 

Still a fourth instance comes to the mind of the 
writer. 

A lady cousin of the author was expressing to 
her dining-room servant her sorrow at the tidings 
of the death of the girl’s father. She added: 

“ I had not heard, Nancy, that he was so ill.” 

“Yessum, Miss Ma’y, his health was deceiving 
some time.” 

From the expression of the young colored 
woman’s face it was evident that the word, “decav- 
ing,” had brought her sweet and decided comfort 
in the midst of her bereavement. 

But our cousin continued, 

“What did you say was the matter with your 
father ? ’ ’ 

“ De doctor say, Ma’am, dat he had de Loco- 
motive Axlegrease.” 

“The what, Nancy ! ” gasped our cousin. 

“ De Locomotive Axlegrease, Ma’am. Yessum, 
dats what de doctor say.” 

A gentleman was present in the room at the time, 


CHARACTERS IN EBONY. I05 

but from the apoplectic appearance of his face it 
seemed as if he would not be present anywhere on 
earth very long. Laboring for self control, he 
turned to the girl and spoke, while his voice shook 
as if he had a swamp ague. 

“Nancy, you mean Locomotor Ataxia.” 

“ Yes, sah, dats what I mean, Locomotive Axle- 
grease.” 

The climax, however, is reached in a fifth case, 
where one colored brother had been made to feel 
perfectly outraged by the persistent misbehavior 
and wrongdoings of another. Full of righteous 
indignation, he rolled out the following remarkable 
sentence : 

“No, sah; he would neither be provised nor 
condesuaded, but was always intermined to act 
recording to his own destruction.” 

* * * * * 

We left the train two hours after midnight in a 
town in the mountains of North Carolina. It was 
bitterly cold, and as we registered at the desk of 
the hotel office we requested the clerk to have us 
a good fire made at once in the room to which we 
had been assigned. 

There was a prompt answer that it should be 
done, a pompous clang of the bell which died away 


IO 6 PEN PICTURES. 

in the dark, chilly passages of the hostelry, and 
finally the tardy appearance of a sleepy-looking 
colored boy of about twenty. 

The order was given to have a fire in “59” at 
once ; and the writer of these lines tarried for at 
least fifteen minutes in the dingy office, adorned 
with State and Railroad maps, in order that the 
chill might be taken off “59” and so one’s health 
and life might be assured. 

When I finally entered the apartment given to 
me, I discovered that “the fire” so grandly ordered 
consisted of several delicate sticks of kindling, a 
piece of brown paper on the sticks and a wash pan 
full of coal dust on the paper. A few tongues of 
flame were creeping over the edge of the aflair 
apparently peeping at, and examining the black 
looking powder, as if in doubt whether it would 
burn or explode. 

Turning to the negro boy who had created this 
fiction or mild representation of a fire, I found he 
was silently but fixedly gazing like myself at the 
artifice. 

At last I spoke. 

“Do you call that a fire?” 

The simple faced soul rubbed his head medita- 
tively, showing most of his teeth and replied, 


CHARACTERS IN EBONY. IO7 

“Well, Boss, Itellyer jes’ how tis, we sont for 
a ky’ar load o’ coal, and when dat ky’ar come, 
t’wan’t nuthun but dus’.” 

Here was light thrown on the situation, if not 
heat. The blame rested not on the fire maker, nor 
the clerk, or the hotel, but on some distant coal 
company who had “sont dus’ ’ ’ instead of coal and 
were now all unconscious of the suffering they 
were inflicting on innocent travelers. 

After a few moments more of conjoint, silent in- 
spection of the modest glimmer in the grate, the 
tall, lank youth, who had been lingering with the 
door knob in his hand, and considerable sympathy 
in his face, began to withdraw. Closing the door 
on his neck, so as to put his body in the hall out 
of sight, while his head hung spectrally midway 
between the floor and ceiling, he said, 

“I don’ speck dey gwine ter charge you fur 
dat fire.” 

Having uttered this oracular message, the round, 
black, woolly head disappeared, the door closed, 
and I was left alone, hovering over the fire place 
and shaking for two distinct reasons. 

Stooping at last to move one of the splinters 
and thereby assist the struggling flames, suddenly 
there was a landslide of the black coal dust and the 


108 PEN PICTURES. 

fire was out ! Pompeii was never more certainly 
covered up and hidden from mortal sight than was 
the paper and kindling construction buried in the 
cavernous grate. Moreover, it vanished from view 
much more rapidly than did the doomed city 
of the plain. 

There was nothing to do but to undress quickly, 
vault between the icy sheets, and seek in sleep for 
forgetfulness of present discomforts and woes ; and 
this was done. 

But a reflection of mild comfort rested in the 
mind above the chattering teeth, before uncon- 
sciousness came. The thought was born of the 
farewell remark of the negro as he swung and 
nodded his head in the air. 

“I don’t speck dey gwine ter charge you fur 
dat fire.” 

Smiling and drowsily repeating, “ I don’t speck 
so either,” the writer, in spite of a frozen mat- 
tress, frosty sheets, and an icy counterpane, fell 
asleep from weariness, if not from comfort, and 
knew no more until morning. 

* * * * * 

In a smalll town in Mississippi I spent several 
days in what proved a mere apology of a hotel. 
The tavern, as some called it, opened upon a great 


CHARACTERS IN EBONY. 


IO9 

square, which was treeless and houseless; and 
also opened itself much of the time to raw winter 
winds, which freely visited the halls and rooms 
through the accommodating doors. 

There was nothing to see on the outside, as a 
compensation for the lack of comfort within the 
hostelry. I would have fared badly but for a 
character I encountered during my brief stay. 

He was a colored youth, and one of the waiters 
in the dining-room. He became quite communi- 
cative in his visits to the rooms of myself and a 
gentleman friend accompanying me. He not only 
left coal, kindling, and fresh water for us, but 
various interesting facts concerning himself. In 
fact he seemed more concerned about the latter 
than the former. To be really truthful, he was bur- 
dened until he delivered himself of various biograph- 
ical features which pressed upon his mind. His 
perfect self-complacency, not to say tremendous sat- 
isfaction with, and approval of himself, as exhib- 
ited in manner, facial expression and words, was 
something beyond description. 

He had been a student in a “Colored College” 
in the State. He had acquired a smattering of 
knowledge, which he strove to reproduce with the 
disadvantage of a tongue not over skillful in the 


I IO 


PEN PICTURES. 


matters of expression and pronunciation. So he 
uttered some memorable things. One of his state- 
ments was that, in vacation times, “He left the 
Universe and lectured.” 

He, of course, meant the university by the word 
universe, but we thought, with a smile, of the many 
lecturers and speakers who, in the indulgence of 
the speculative and imaginative, do truly and really 
leave the universe. 

Being asked by my friend what his subjects 
were in his lecture tours, he replied that one was, 
“The Effects of Morals as' They Stand Alone.” 
We suggested as a paraphrase the sentence, “The 
loneliness of morals,” and thought that certain 
parts of the country had been struck again. 

He was asked one morning as he leaned, or rather 
hung on the end of the mantelpiece, “If he ever 
reached a place where thoughts and words failed 
him in his public addresses.” His delightful reply 
was : 

“Ever since I have been twelve years old, I 
have had the gift of sitting down when I run out 
of something to say.” 

Truly, I thought, here is one of the lost arts, 
and of all secrets which have perished, this could 
least have been spared. I could but think of the 


CHARACTERS IN EBONY. 


Ill 


unspeakable relief that would be afforded, and the 
joy which would fill men’s hearts, if all speakers 
had the gift of sitting down when they ran out of 
ideas and facts worth repeating and hearing. 

On another occasion our waiter, who was be- 
coming interested in the revival services, said that 
“he had heard some ministers preach on the two 
works of grace, regeneration and sanctification, 
but for his life he couldn’t see where they made 
any extinguished difference.” 

This last statement opened up a great field to the 
vision which was filled with human figures who wore 
beaver hats, and were dressed in long-skirted black 
coats, bearing a solitary row of numerous buttons. 
We saw them crossing lances, or rather pens, in 
the religious papers, on the inexhaustible subjects 
of modes of baptism, orders of the ministry, pre- 
destination and election, and apostolical succession. 
We watched them locking horns on convention 
floors, as to points of order, constructions of law, 
and other grave and ponderous matters. Then we 
beheld them in what seemed a life and death strug- 
gle over questions of church doctrine and religious 
experience, until it seemed that the sun and stars 
would surely forget to shine, and the earth stand 
still in absorbed interest over such wisdom and elo- 


1 1 2 


PEN PICTURES. 


quence, and in fear over the momentous results 
bound to follow such pen and tongue labors. 
When, lo and behold, the heavenly bodies moved 
on just the same ; for the earthly bodies attired as 
we have said, had, in all their fussing and fum- 
ing, their jangling and wrangling, their motions 
and commotions, done, — or rather failed to do just 
what the negro youth said, They had made no 
“ extinguished difference. ’ ’ 

They themselves had extinguished the differ- 
ence I 


IX. 


wesley’s magazine. 

D R KAY was the pastor of the leading church of 
his denomination in a large city. Afterward, he 
was, in recognition of his ability, made a Bishop. 
One Sabbath morning while filling his pulpit, his 
eyes fell upon a face in the audience which quite at- 
tracted him. It was the countenance of a man fully 
sixty years of age. The type was English, the ex- 
pression open and smiling and the general appear- 
ance benevolent and patriarchal. Moreover he 
seemed very much impressed with the discourse. 

After the sermon, the gentleman approached 
and was introduced to the preacher who became 
more interested in him as he took note of the guile- 
less face and child-like nature of the man. 

On inquiry, it turned out that he was on the way 
from England to visit an only daughter who lived 
deep in the interior of Missouri. The funds of the 
old gentleman had given out in New Orleans, and 
here he was, fifteen hundred miles by water from 
his destination, and yet cheerful as a bob-o-link in 
spring time. 


( 113 ) 


PEN PICTURES. 


II 4 

The preacher asked him how he proposed cov- 
ering this distance in such a specieless condition. 
The smiling reply was that he did not know, that 
all he owned in the world was a copy of Mr. 
Wesley’s magazine, printed in 1789. 

The preacher told him he hardly thought he 
could ride to Missouri on that publication. And so 
being filled with a deep interest and pity for the 
stranger, the man of God bustled around and raised 
a purse from his members sufficient to pay the needed 
fare to the distant Western State. 

The unaffected gratitude of the sunny-natured 
old Englishman was most pleasing. He thanked his 
reliever again and again, and begged him to ac- 
cept as a token of his gratitude, Mr. Wesley’s mag- 
azine, printed in 1789. The preacher with smiles 
refused the valuable remuneration, and told him 
he would not deprive him of such a treasure. 

In due time the steamer swung out into the 
Mississippi and disappeared around the Carrolton 
Bend, carrying the cheerful hearted old English- 
man. 

Six months rolled away, and not a word had 
been heard from him, when suddenly one Sabbath 
morning, as Dr. Kay was in the midst of his dis- 
course, he glanced down and saw the face of the 


wesley’s magazine. i i 5 

sunny faced Briton shining at him, just as though 
he had never left the pew since last seen, and had 
never been to Missouri. The greeting after the 
sermon was of the same cordial, open character 
that had distinguished the first. The returned 
traveler seemed unaffectedly glad to see the 
preacher, and the preacher could not for his life 
keep back a warm smile and cordial hand-shake 
from the little old man who was so persistently 
sunny and winning. 

Of course the question came plump out from 
Dr. Kay. 

4 ‘ What on earth are you doing here ! I thought 
you were a thousand miles away in the northwest.” 

“So I was,” replied the Briton, “but I had 
not been long with my daughter, when I saw my 
son-in-law did not want me. My welcome wore 
out in a month’s time, and I felt that I must go 
back to England.” 

“How did you manage to get here?” asked 
the minister. “ Did your daughter or son-in-law 
help you financially? ” 

“ O no, not a cent. I just got on a steamboat 
on the Missouri river and came here.” 

“Did they let you travel free?” queried Dr. 
Kay. 


1 1 6 


PEN PICTURES. 


“Well, they had to; there was no other way 
for me to travel. What did I have ! So just as 
soon as the boat went to puffing down the river the 
clerk came to me and asked me for my fare. I 
told him I had nothing in the world to give him 
except a copy of Mr, Wesley’s Magazine, printed 
in the year 1789. And what do you suppose the 
clerk did? ” And the smiling old man grew grave 
and pensive for a few moments. 

“I am afraid to guess,” replied the preacher. 
“Well, sir,” said the Briton, “ I’ll tell you. He 
cussed Mr. Wesley, and cussed the magazine, and 
turned around and cussed me.” 

His listener bowed his head quickly to 
hide a smile, which in spite of every effort 
would overspread itself in boldest lines and curves 
upon the face. 

“ Yes, sir,” resumed the grieved little man, “ he 
cussed us all.” 

“ Did he let you stay on the boat after that?” 
inquired the minister. 

“Yes. He never paid any more attention to me 
all the way down to New Orleans.” 

“ How do you propose getting back to England, 
if you are without money?” 

“ I have a son in Canada near Quebec,” replied 


wesley’s magazine. 


i 17 

the old gentleman. “If I could get to him, I could 
manage the rest of the trip back home, some way, 
through him.” 

After saying this all care seemed to leave the 
speaker, and his accustomed serenity and sunniness 
of spirit returned with an actual gathered force. 

It all resulted as before in Dr. Kay taking up 
a second private collection, during the week. 
And so there was a second surprise for the simple- 
minded old gentleman, and a second outpouring of 
thanks on his part. But in another moment he added . 

“ I would be so glad if you would accept as a 
token of my gratitude for all your kindness, a copy 
of Mr. Wesley’s magazine printed in the year 1789. 
It is the only one that I have, and it is all that I 
have to give.” 

The preacher however graciously and steadily 
refused, though Mr. Wesley’s admirer for the space 
of several minutes continued to urge him to accept 
the wonderful publication. 

A few days afterward, the old gentleman betook 
himself with his beaming smiles and sunny nature 
to the train on his way to Canada. 

Twelve months rolled by, and the remembrance 
of the individual had dropped from Dr. Kay’s mind, 
when he received a letter through the mail with the 


1 18 


PEN PICTURES. 


postmark of a town in England upon the envelope. 
It proved to be from Mr. Wesley’s admirer. He 
said that he had safely reached his son’s home 
in the Dominion, spent a number of months very 
pleasantly with him, and had finally left for Eng- 
land. He had just arrived a few days before, safe 
and sound, after an absence of two years. He fur- 
thermore related that he could not but be grateful 
to the preacher in America who had been so kind 
to him, and as a token of his affectionate regard 
would be glad to send him a copy of Mr. Wesley’s 
magazine, printed in the year 1789, but he feared if 
the volume should be sent by mail it would not reach 
him. Meantime he begged to remain as ever, his 
obliged humble servant, etc., etc. 

This was the end of the personal history of 
the English gentleman as known on this side of the 
water ; but the whole occurrence itself was a mar- 
velous illustration of the privileges and possibilities 
of the Nineteenth century. The bit of biography 
narrated in this chapter establishes as perfectly true 
and reasonable the amazing occurrences of a certain 
book called “The Arabian Nights;” and even 
shows that they can be surpassed. In that famous 
volume we read that a Prince would put a small 
carpet the size of a rug on the ground, place him- 


wesley’s magazine. 


“9 

self upon the limited area, and immediately be 
borne away to distant parts of the earth. But here 
an old gentleman, not a prince, takes a copy of Mr. 
Wesley’s magazine, printed in the year 1789, and 
rides, so to speak, upon it from England to Amer- 
ica, from New Orleans to Missouri, from the far- 
away west back to the Gulf of Mexico, from Louis- 
iana to Canada, and from Canada back to England. 

In all these trips the man sees many wonderful 
things, makes delightful acquaintances, visits his 
daughter in the west and his son in the east, and after 
years of such traveling, visiting, eating, drinking 
and sleeping, returns home without the journey hav- 
ing cost him personally a single cent ; the whole 
thing having been accomplished by a copy of Mr. 
Wesley’s magazine, printed in the year 1789. 

It might however, be well to say, that not every 
one could ride the book that far. That to make the 
wonderful recorded excursion as given in this chap- 
ter there was required, in addition to the magazine, 
a certain compound of smiles, sunniness of manner, 
and child-like innocence upon the part of the rider 
himself. 

Nevertheless all can see that the book really 
carried the rider. 


X. 


A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 

'THERE had been a number of missionary ad- 
A dresses delivered by prominent ministers and 
laymen. A collection had been taken up with the 
usual auctioneering feature, “who will give five dol- 
lars ?’ ’ the regulation sending out of painfully self- 
conscious brethren with hats as collection baskets, 
and the customary exchange of ancient and thread- 
bare witticisms between the collectors and the 
brother in charge of the collection, as he stood in his 
directing capacity on the platform. 

The congregation had been trickling out for an 
hour and so at the singing of the doxology there were 
hardly one hundred people left. With the pro- 
nouncing of the benediction this remainder speedily 
passed out on the street and was swallowed up in 
the shadows of the night. 

The treasurer and the chairman of the mission- 
ary board, in the counting up of cash and straight- 
ening of certain accounts, were the only persons 
left in the building, with the exception of the sex- 
ton, who waited sleepily and anxiously near the 
door for their departure, that he might shut up the 
church and go home. 


( 120 ) 


A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 


I 2 I 


The first mentioned officer had been carrying 
around with him for days a black tin box, about a 
foot square, containing over a thousand dollars of 
the conference missionary money. To this was 
added a thousand more that night ; and now, with 
a feeling of great relief he turned it all over to the 
chairman, and bidding him good night, walked out of 
the front door of the church, while the other two 
retired through a rear entrance. 

As the large, heavy doors closed behind the 
treasurer, he found that the street in which he stood 
was pitch dark, while the town clock from the dis- 
tant court house belfry was striking the hour of 
eleven. 

He almost felt his way across to the opposite 
pavement, had placed his foot on the brick walk, 
when out of a shadowy recess or alley way, some- 
what to his left, a voice said : 

“ Good evening.” 

Very promptly the treasurer replied, “ Good 
evening,” but unable to see the form, and feeling 
that no one with right intentions should be address- 
ing him at such a time, he turned to the right and 
walked on his way up the pavement. 

To his exceeding discomfort he realized that 
he was being followed, and as the tread of the 


122 


PEN PICTURES. 


pursuing footsteps sounded close behind, the voice 
spoke again. 

“Excuse me, sir, but who preached to-night ?” 

Looking backward the treasurer saw the form 
of the man, but could not see his face. He replied : 

“No one preached sir ; we had a number of 
missionary addresses.*’ 

In another moment the man had reached his 
side, and looking up the treasurer discovered to 
his horror that his face was covered with a black 
mask. 

At once it flashed on him that the person had 
spotted him during the preceding days as he had 
walked to and from the church with the missionary 
cash box in his hand, and now knowing that there 
had been an additional collection, had determined 
to waylay and rob the cash bearer. 

With the thought came at the same time the re- 
alization of his own helplessness. The streets were 
dark and forsaken, the people of the town all home 
by this time and in bed, while the man who walked 

by his side was both taller and heavier. Moreover, 
he could not tell at what time the individual would 
strike or shoot him down. 

There was a single light twinkling in a resi- 
dence, the gallery of which came down to the edge 


A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 


123 

of the brick walk. The first impulse of the treas- 
urer was to step quickly on the porch, ring the 
bell, and ask to remain there for the night, as he 
knew the family. But a second thought came up, 
why be alarmed so soon ? and one should be ashamed 
to run before a single attack had been made upon 
him. So the house was passed, and the two walked 
farther up the dark avenue together. 

As they reached the next corner, the preacher 
looked down the street on the left hand which led 
south. With the exception of a feeble light gleam- 
ing through a door or window in the distance, the 
thoroughfare was black. Two blocks away a large 
wooden bridge spanned a deep railroad cut, and 
beyond that were some empty lots with a few scat- 
tering houses which lay between the bridge and 
the suburban home where the writer of this 
narrative was entertained. Darkness lay over 
it all. 

Of course it was evident now to the mind of the 
preacher that the plan of the robber was to accom- 
pany him beyond the bridge, and somewhere on 
the road among the lonely lots, shoot, or strike him 
down, and make off with the box of money which 
he believed his victim still had in charge. 

The treasurer hesitated a moment at the corner, 


124 


PEN PICTURES. 


scarcely knowing what to do, when the masked 
man asked : 

“ Which way are you going? ’ ’ 

“I shall take this street toward the bridge,” 
was the answer, with the hope that the unwelcome 
companion would say that he intended going 
straight on. Instead, he replied: 

“ I’ll go along with you.” 

And so he did, walking silently by his side. As 
they proceeded down the street together, thought 
was busy in the mind of the preacher as to what 
was best to be done. There was no sign of a 
watchman, and everybody seemed to have gone to 
bed. What could be done ! 

Suddenly he conceived a plan, and acted upon 
it. They were nearing the solitary light which 
issued from an open door and cast a narrow path of 
brightness on the pavement before them. He felt that 
if he passed that border of radiance and went out 
into the shadowy and forsaken streets beyond the 
bridge he would be murdered, and no one ever be the 
wiser as to how and by whom it was done. If he was 
knocked down and robbed of the two hundred dol- 
lars in his pocket which the chairman of the board 
had given him to present to one of the conference 
missionaries at the house where he was staying, 


A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 


I2 5 

many would 'not believe in his story, and he would 
have a cloud to rest upon him all the rest of his life. 

So just as they got opposite the door, the 
preacher, without a moment’s hesitation, suddenly 
turned and walked through it into the building and 
left his companion evidently astonished at the 
unexpected movement on the street. 

The place proved to be several things in one. 
On the left side was a fancy grocery store, on the 
right curtained stalls for eating, while a bar-room 
with green blinds was in the rear. Not a soul was 
in front, but voices could be heard from behind the 
screen in the saloon. The air was impregnated with 
whisky, and the thick and stammering language of 
the unseen speakers, showed unmistakably that the 
owners thereof were well on the way to intoxication, 
if not already there. 

At this moment the man on the street entered, 
and the mask was still on his face. Stepping up to 
the preacher he asked in a voice trembling with 
anger / 4 What do you mean by coming in here,” 
The minister said quietly but firmly, 

44 I came in to get rid of you. You annoy me.” 
As he said this he threw his cloak back over his 
shoulders so that though still buttoned at the neck 
it hung down his back. This was done carelessly, 


126 


PEN PICTURES. 


but also designedly, that the man might see that the 
tin box was not on hand. And this he did see, 
and the recognition was evident to the preacher in 
spite of the mask. 

By this time the owner of the store hearing 
voices in front, came forward attended by two men 
who were evidently far gone in liquor. As the 
young preacher looked on the coarse, bestial face 
of the saloon-keeper, took note of the two drunken 
men, and then his eye fell again upon the masked 
man, who strange to say did not leave, and did not 
unmask, his heart sank at the thought of his sur- 
roundings and company at such an hour and so far 
from any friend or earthly assistance. He felt as 
he looked at the group that he could expect no 
help or mercy from them. 

One additional fact that made his heart sink still 
lower, was that he saw a swift glance of recogni- 
tion or intelligence of some kind pass between the 
masked man and the others. Not a syllable of 
surprise was uttered by one of the three that a fourth 
man had on a black mask which only allowed his 
eyes to be seen. 

The saloon-keeper turned to the preacher and 
said shortly, 

“ What will you have? ” 


A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 


127 


His reply was : 

“I came here to get rid of this man, who per- 
sists in following me.” 

In answer to this the person with the mask 
whirled upon the speaker and gave him a fearful 
cursing. Dreadful as it was, there was nothing to 
do but to take it. 

Finally the man exhausted his fury and profane 
vocabulary, and concluded with the words that the 
preacher might go home, or to the "bottom of the pit 
for what he cared, that he did not want anything to 
do with him one way or the other. 

The minister endured the abuse trying as it was, 
being shrewd enough to see that it was a venting of 
spleen and a covering up of the would be 
thief’s disappointment at the absence of the tin 
box. 

So feeling that it was not more dangerous to go 
than to remain in such a place, he walked out of the 
store and with a rapid step struck out for the rail- 
road bridge. He fully expected to be followed, and 
had the curious sensation in the back and along the 
spinal cord that some one was pursuing him and 
ready to strike or stab him. 

When he gained the bridge he glanced back, but 
could see no. one. Even the light had disappeared 


128 


PEN PICTURES. 


by the closing of the door, or by havings been 
extinguished. 

He crossed the bridge, and entered the gloomy, 
empty lots, and walked swiftly along the sparsely 
settled road with its few houses standing back in 
their yards, while the sensation still played like in- 
visible fingers on the nerves, testifying by a lan- 
guage of touches that some one was following 
closely in the dark. 

At last, after having trudged a distance of nearly 
a half dozen blocks, the preacher reached the gate, 
entered the yard, and stood on the gallery of the 
house owned by his host. By the light streaming 
out of the transom, and voices inside, he knew that 
the family and other ministerial guests had not re- 
tired. Never did light look more beautiful, nor 
voices sound sweeter. 

He rapped on the door, and was not heard at 
first because of the hum of conversation. The 
creeping sensation in the backbone testified to un- 
passed danger, and the nervous glance of the eye 
backward revealed a dark object moving near the 
gate. Again the preacher knocked, and this time 
louder. Some one approached from within, the door 
opened, and the hunted man stepped in from the 
dark, chilly night, into the warm, bright room filled 


A NIGHT ADVENTURE. 


129 


with loving friends while a cheerful fire crackled 
on the hearth. Never did lamp and fire look 
brighter and people appear more attractive and 
delightful. 

A great black mantle of anxiety and even dread 
slipped from off his shoulders on the gallery, the 
door was closed upon it, and the preacher sat down 
with the family and guests in comfort and safety, 
with such a feeling of mental relief, gladness of 
heart, and gratitude to God for divine protection 
and deliverance, that no words could possibly de- 
scribe. 

After a few minutes the strange occurrences of the 
night were related to the group, who had purposely 
sat up waiting for the arrival of their guest and 
friend and were wondering at his long delay. 

When he told the history of the night, a deep 
silence fell upon all ; and when the conclusion was 
reached, the unanimous conviction and expressed 
opinion was that God had delivered his servant from 
a deadly peril. 


XI. 


A PASTORAL ROUND. 

'pHE church to which a certain pastor had been 
A appointed by the conference was languishing 
and even dying for pastoral work. It had been 
favored with gifted men, with scholars, orators and 
even poets, but these brethren had preferred their 
studies and libraries, with companionship of pen 
and pencil, to the loving, prayerful house-to-house 
visiting that was needed. Then there had been 
one or two ministers who were neither preachers 
nor pastors ; so the charge had gone steadily 
down, and a corporal’s guard of an audience re- 
mained where once had been a large congregation. 

The new preacher found this to be the state of 
affairs on his arrival, and also discovered that two- 
thirds of the membership lived in the country from 
one to seven miles. To cap the climax, the rem- 
nant or faithful few left in town were financially 
unable to provide him with horse or vehicle to fol- 
low up and recover the absent ones. 

He lost no time in fruitless regrets and com- 
plaints. His heart burned to see the work of God 
( 130 ) 


A PASTORAL ROUND. I3I 

I 

revive, and a great tenderness filled his breast for 
the wandering sheep of the fold. He determined 
to go after them, and to do it on foot. The flock 
must be gotten back to the house of God, and to 
the fold of Christ. 

His first walk over fields, through woodlands, 
and along country lanes, extended from the sub- 
urbs to quite a number of miles as he pushed far- 
ther and farther, with each trip, to reach the people 
who had left the church, forgotten duty, and were 
going farther astray all the time as the years went 
by. If they would not come to him, he would 
go to them. And he did. 

One day he started out on one of his rounds. 
It was a cold afternoon, with a bleak wind cut- 
ting his face and occasional flurries of snow filling 
the air. He visited from house to house beyond the 
corporation lines, getting farther and farther from 
town, while the roads became white with the in- 
creasing snow, the dusk settled upon the land- 
scape, and the distant lights of the town glimmered 
faintly over the darkening fields. 

He spent a half an hour with each family, en- 
gaged in kindly talk about their temporal welfare, 
then passed into spiritual conversation, concluding 
the visit with a brief passage from the Scriptures 


132 


PEN PICTURES. 


and a tender, unctious prayer in the midst of the 
family, who knelt around him. Arising from his 
knees he would frequently discover the eyes of the 
others moistened like his own, and sometimes their 
faces bathed with tears. 

A number of visits had thus been paid when the 
black night found him several miles from town, 
knocking at the door of still another house. It was 
the home of a local preacher who had become hurt 
and soured over church affairs and was now absent- 
ing himself from any and all meetings. When 
in response to the knock he opened the door 
and saw his new preacher standing on the 
threshold, with a black night and heavy snow storm 
for a background, he was astounded and could 
scarcely utter the words which, as they came from 
his lips, were spoken as if a full period came after 
each. 

“ Wh y — what — on- — earth — brings — you — out 
such — a — night — as — this ? ’ ’ 

The simple response of the preacher was, 

“ I am after my Lord’s sheep.” 

There was that in the quiet, loving answer that 
went like an arrow to the local preacher’s heart, for 
with dimmed eyes and broken voice he put his arm 
around the visitor, drew rather than led him into the 


A PASTORAL ROUND. 


133 


room, and placed him in an easy chair before a great 
cheery fire that was blazing up the chimney. 

It was a large family circle and all seemed 
strangely touched and drawn to the man of God 
who had come to see them through such weather, 
and not only that, but to spend the night. He walked 
right into every one of their hearts that evening, 
even before the time for family prayer. The sing- 
ing of the old time Methodist hymns in the fire- 
side worship sounded in sweet contrast to the rush- 
ing storm outside. All were remembered by name 
in the prayer that followed, and heaven came very 
near. They felt somehow shut in with God, and 
the hard lines that had been gathering on the local 
preacher’s face for several years back were wiped 
out that very hour. 

Next morning, when he stood with his family 
on the porch, saying goodbye to their pastor, who 
intended pushing on still farther in the country 
after the scattered sheep of his flock, there was a 
look in his face that had not been there for many 
months. Waving his hand to the departing guest, 
he cried out : 

“We will all be in to church next Sunday, rain 
or shine.” 

The preacher smiled back at the group, and was 


134 


PEN PICTURES. 


not a whit surprised at the promise. He had seen 
pastoral medicine tried before and he felt in his 
soul that Christ had this family once more in his 
love, grace and protection. 

The snow had ceased falling and now lay deep 
everywhere. The clouds stretched in ashen-gray 
bands over the sky, and the wind, now veered into 
the north, was so keen and bitter that not a human 
being could be seen in field or upon the road. 

This state ot things, however, was in agreement 
with and for the furtherance of his plans. He 
wanted to see the men as well as the women and 
children of his flock. And now he knew that he 
would find them all housed, for the snow was too 
deep and the weather too severe for them to do any 
outside work. And he so found them. 

He trudged across the hard frozen fields all day, 
breaking through frosty crusts, knocking off the 
snow in fleecy showers from the fences he climbed, 
opening ice-clad gates, and astonishing many fami- 
lies by his unexpected appearance on foot and 
alone, but leaving them later all drawn to him, and 
better still to the Saviour, by his evident interest 
in and love for them. His closing prayer, in which 
he often individualized each member of the family, 
pleading for their happiness, usefulness, prosperity 


A PASTORAL ROUND. 


135 


and salvation, invariably melted them, and almost 
without exception left the entire family in tears. 

Women with a baby in arms and smaller tots 
hanging on to their dress stood in the door with a 
pleased smile and asked him to come again. The 
shamefaced father or husband would at times fol- 
low him to the gate or bars, chewing a pine splinter, 
and looking like he wanted to get something offhis 
mind and heart, but did not know which end of the 
matter to take hold of for the verbal lift. Observ- 
ing the embarrassing silence, the preacher took the 
large brown hand in his and said just as he was 
leaving. 

‘ ‘ I hope I will see you at church next Sunday ?” 
When the reply came like a pistol shot, 

“ I’ll be there.” 

And he was. 

At the hour of sunset the preacher found him- 
self seven miles from home in the heart of a great 
pine forest. The snow lay outspread around him 
like a vast white carpet, the trunks of the great 
pines shot up in the air over an hundred feet high, 
while every leaf was encased in glittering ice. The 
tree trunks looked like the pillars of a majestic 
temple, and the wind sighing through their tops 
flung down upon him from this natural aeolian harp 


136 


PEN PICTURES. 


the sweetest and yet most weird of music. 
Just then there was a rift in a cloud in the west and 
the sunlight dashed for a few minutes through the 
grove and fairly transfigured the spot, beautiful as 
it was before. The tree tops had become a roof 
of diamonds and the tree trunks pillars of garnet 
and ruby, 

The man stood enraptured at the vision, and 
crying out : 

“Lord, what a temple of glory in which to wor- 
ship Thee,” he cast himself down on his face 
in prayer, praise and adoration. His heart was on 
fire and he scarcely felt the chill of the frozen 
ground with its cold covering. 

Later on he stood up, drinking in the beauty 
and solemnity of the scene, until the light began 
to pale, the trees looked spectral and the sigh up in 
mid-air sounded more lonesome than ever. 

Suddenly the thought came to him like an in- 
jected whisper : 

‘ ‘ Who knows where you are ? Who cares 
where you are? Others of your brethren are in 
easy places to-day, and here you are hunting up 
poor people all day, and at nightfall in the woods, 
tired, hungry, cold, and hardly knowing where 
you are and which direction to take. The very 


A PASTORAL, ROUND. 137 

city that asked for you has already forgotten you. 
Who knows where you are, and who cares? ” 

The dejection lasted only a minute, for swiftly 
the sweet thought seemed to be shot into the mind 
and from there sank into the heart, 

“Jesus knows.” 

An ineffable gladness at once swept into him and 
a glory indescribable filled the shadowy woods. 

Looking up he said, “Lord, which way shall I 
go?” 

He had hardly uttered this when he heard a cock 
crow in the distance. Going in the direction of 
the sound, he came out in ten minutes upon a field 
with a house in the center containing two rooms 
and an open connecting hall. The dwelling 
and little farm proved to belong to one of his 
church members. 

In this home he made seven new warm friends, 
consisting of the father, mother, and five children. 
In the country where the people hear rarely from 
the outside world a visitor is always welcome, but 
when he is a Christian, and one’s own pastor at 
that, he is doubly welcome. 

The evening meal was simple, consisting of 
bread, hominy, pork and milk. Grace was said and 
all ate with thankful hearts. Afterward, when gath- 


138 


PEN PICTURES. 


ered around the fire, there was a little talk about the 
great busy world, considerably more about the 
church in town, its melancholy condition, etc., and 
finally some gentle, but close conversation about 
what the Savior was to each one of them. 

Then came the hour of family worship. The 
wind roared down the wide mud chimney and 
gusts of smoke would be driven into the room 
where they knelt, but there was a holy fire burn- 
ing in the soul of the preacher, and the smoke 
ascending through the gray rafters looked to his 
eyes like clouds of incense from a holy altar and 
like the glory which used to come down and fill the 
Tabernacle of Israel. 

He was placed to sleep at bedtime in the room 
across the hall. Great cracks yawned between 
the logs which made the four walls of the apart- 
ment, and the cold wind swept through and over 
him all night, but the warm breath of Heaven was 
also there and he slept and rested as sweetly as a 
child in the cradle, and far more comfortably than 
some of earth, whose beds are of down, but whose 
pillows are of thorns. 

The next morning, the third day out, the 
preacher set his face townward and homeward, but 
returned by a different road. 


A PASTORAL ROUND. 


139 


A sudden change of weather had taken place 
that morning. The sun shone brightly and warmly 
and there was a great thaw. Through the soft 
snow and slush and mud he pulled his way along, 
going from house to house with half hour visits, 
which were invariably terminated with the Word of 
God and prayer. He reserved the home of a noted 
infidel for his last call, as a kind of dessert to the 
varied meal of which he had been partaking for 
three days. 

The man lived two miles from town, had not 
been to church for many years, and was given up 
as a hard case. The visitor knew this, but un- 
daunted knocked at the door at two o’clock in the 
afternoon. The man, like all the rest who had 
been called on, was astonished. He was surprised 
in the first place that a minister should come 
to see him, and marvelled to behold him afoot 
and on such a day. He was evidently taken aback 
when he asked : 

“What brings you out on such a da y and so far 
from town?” The man of God replied : 

“To see you, Brother Scott.” The voice was 
full of kindness and he called him Brother Scott, 
he, an old, hardened, profane sinner! 

The man’s well-known boldness and confidence 


140 


PEN PICTURES. 


were now all gone, and with a nervous, embarrassed 
air and a husky voice he asked the minister to come 
in. Maybe he felt the warm, loving spirit which 
filled his guest ; perhaps the kindness and interest 
manifested by walking so far to see him touched 
his heart. Anyhow the preacher saw with a quick 
glance that the lines of the countenance were 
softened, and so turning to him, he said : 

“Brother Scott, I have called on you because 
I love your soul and because I was once far off 
from God and no one came to help me.” 

He then with heaven-annointed tongue told the 
silent man how once he lived in sin, and was 
going to ruin ; that he had not been to church in 
years and no one seemed to care for his soul ; that 
right in the midst of this kind of life God touched 
his heart and he found himself longing for peace 
and pardon and yet not knowing how it was to be 
obtained. How he wrote to his mother about his 
determination to do better, and her reply that he 
should commence praying. That he did so in igno- 
rance and discouragement, with all kinds of difficul- 
ties in his way. But one morning while on his knees, 
all humbled and looking, to Christ the blessing of sal- 
vation came, and God filled his soul with a blessed 
sense of pardon, and such peace, joy and love that 


A PASTORAL ROUND. 


I 4 I 

he cried out and wept aloud in the presence of his 
wife. 

He had proceeded thus far when, happening to 
look at the infidel, he saw the tears running down 
his cheeks. The man seemed ashamed of his emo- 
tion and stepping quickly to the door, went out on 
the gallery and began to halloo loudly to some per- 
son in the field. The fact was there was no one 
there, but the whole procedure was a ruse to get 
away from the speaker, break the strange spell that 
was upon the soul and recover self-control in the 
cold, fresh air outside. 

On returning from calling the imaginary indi- 
vidual, the man’s face had become stone-like again. 
But nothing daunted, the preacher begged him to 
kneel down with him in prayer, and down he went, 
while God filled the room with His holy presence. 
In parting, the infidel was asked if he would come 
to church ; and he said he would. 

There was one more place the preacher felt like 
visiting before concluding his pastoral trip, and 
that was a large deserted camp-ground, one mile 
from town and on still another road. So cutting 
across the fields, and crossing a broad, foaming 
branch or creek on a log, and climbing a steep hill, 
he descended upon the opposite side and came 


142 


PEN PICTURES. 


upon the empty and silent camp-ground with its 
numerous rows of wooden cottages and lofty cen- 
tral tabernacle. 

He walked along one of the streets past the 
closed and barred tents, and entering the great 
auditorium, passed down one of its steep aisles to 
the altar below. Here he sat a great while in the 
shadows of the waning afternoon, drinking in the 
stillness of the sacred place, recalling the scenes of 
glory he had witnessed there and thinking of the 
godly people he had met, worshiped with, and re- 
joiced with, around this very altar. 

They were all far away now. The empty benches 
were mutely, but painfully eloquent. That strange 
sadness which arises from beholding a place in soli- 
tude where one has previously been in company with 
others, was upon him. Looking up he said : 

“Lord, they are all scattered and gone, but you 
are here. You never leave your servants,” and 
down he went on the sawdust in the altar, face 
covered and form at full length. 

What a time he had ! The camp-meeting of 
the year before was nothing to the glory which 
God poured into his soul. 

He must have been there bowed in worship fully 
an hour. Then arising he talked to the Savior, as 


A PASTORAL ROUND. 


143 

one speaks to a friend, face to face. What a con- 
versation it was ! What a communion of flame ! 
The old Tabernacle seemed to be filled with a 
heavenly presence and all sense of loneliness was 
utterly gone. 

After a while he arose, went up the hill, and 
down the road towards town. On reaching it he 
learned that some one had been very sick in his 
absence, that messengers had scoured the country 
for him in every direction, but could not overtake 
him. They heard of him everywhere, but could 
not find him. 

It was all right that they did not. The Lord 
did not intend that they should. He knew that 
the sickness was not unto death, and He wanted 
His scattered sheep visited and fed. So God saw 
to it that His servant finished his pastoral round 
before he heard the tidings of ill. 

The preacher had been absent three days. Many 
homes had been visited and hundreds of people 
talked and prayed with. Very gracious also were 
some of the fruits of that single pastoral campaign 
in the reclamation and salvation of souls. 

One result, however, was noticed by everybody, 
and seen at once, and that was such a crowd at 
church on the following Sunday as had not been 


H4 


PEN PICTURES. 


beheld since the day of its dedication. Wagons, 
carriages and buggies lined the street in front and 
dotted the public road that ran on the side of the 
church. Horses nickered and mules brayed in 
chorus, while all the benches in the meeting house 
were filled, hundreds of cordial handgrasps were 
given, hearts melted, eyes filled, and Arlington, 
Dundee and Old Hundred were sung with an unc- 
tion and volume that sent a wave of wonder over 
the neighborhood and a still bigger billow of glory 
up to heaven. 

Of course there were some present who did not 
understand, and marvelled at the great gathering. 
But others knew, and while receiving the bread of 
life from the pastor's lips that day, had a mental 
picture of a lonely black-robed figure toiling over 
the fields and flitting along snow-covered roads, 
with a look in his face that translated meant, “I 
seek the Lord’s sheep that are lost.” 

One brother delivered himself in the churchyard 
before driving off with his family. He spoke orac- 
ularly, if not originally. Waving his whip i-n the air, 
and nodding his head to a group of church mem- 
bers, he said, “It never fails, gentlemen. A house 
going preacher makes a church going people.” 

And they all said, Amen. 


XII. 


* 


THE HOUSEHOLD PRODIGY. 

^ PRODIGY is a marvel. Looking at it in a 
geographical sense, it is something or somebody 
not far removed from the boundary line of the mi- 
raculous. The word naturally leads to other words 
like prodigious ; while some say that the prodigy of 
the household often turns into a prodigal. We do 
not stop to argue this question. 

Prodigies are known to exist in different forms 
as well as in different fields of life and nature. 
Usually, however, they are quite scarce everywhere 
except in the home circle. 

If anyone would see a prodigy with small loss 
of time, let him knock at the first house where 
dwells a mother with a group of children, and she 
will point out one or several without a moment’s 
hesitation. 

It is exceedingly gratifying to a lover of the 
race, and especially a patriot, to be made to 
realize the amount of genius, the quantity of unde- 
veloped greatness that is in the children of every 

family. If he is doubtful, the mother 
( 145 ) 


can soon 


146 


PEN PICTURES. 


convince him he is wrong and give him over- 
whelming proofs of the marvelous gifts and talents 
she has recognized in her boys. 

The father, having been a boy, is more conserv- 
ative in his opinions of “that wonderful child” or 
“that remarkable boy.” Some would call him dis- 
trustful and others downright skeptical. Still others 
declare that he is really hard hearted to smile so 
grimly when his wife is enlarging upon the tran- 
scendent abilities of George Frederick Adolphus. 

His lack of cordial agreement, and even silence, 
fails however to move the mother, who continues 
to write to distant members of the family connec- 
tion about the amazing sayings and wonderful 
doings of a certain little fellow in knee pants. She 
“fears she will never be able to raise him.” 
She “is confident that death has marked him for 
its own.” She “just knows that no child with 
such wise and profound speeches, so far beyond 
his years, will ever live.” She “listens to him with 
a sinking heart.” She “writes these lines with 
overflowing eyes as she is convinced that William 
Henry Robinson will never be spared in this sinful 
world.” “But if he does live, she knows that he 
will be President of the United States or Bishop of 
the Episcopal Church,” etc., etc., etc. 


THE HOUSEHOLD PRODIGY. I47 

It is said that all Jewish mothers hoped to bring 
forth the Messiah into the world. To-day women 
dream of being the mother of generals, admirals, 
orators, bishops and presidents. 

Who can count the G. W.’s, H. C.’s, D. W.’s, 
A. J.’s, M. L.’s, J. W.’s, and N. B.’s of this world. 
Interpreted, these letters stand for George Wash- 
ington, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Andrew 
Jackson, Martin Luther, John Wesley, and Napo- 
leon Bonaparte. We have found several of the 
latter among the colored people. 

Every mother with a boy child seems to think 
she has brought a prodigy into the world, and if 
he is not already one, well, he will be one. 

Two things amaze the author in this connection. 
One is the number of extraordinary children in the 
homes in the land, and the other is the vast num- 
ber of ordinary people everywhere. What becomes 
of these wonders of the household? Did their 
genius evaporate after they were ten years of age ? 
Did envy plot to keep them down and hide 
their light? Or (perish the thought) were the 
mothers mistaken about their greatness ? 

One thing is certain, that instead of the nation 
being filled with blazing geniuses, we find vast 
bodies of plain, plodding men bearing the initials 


PEN PICTURES. 


I48 

of G. W., D. W., J. W., A. J., H. C., and N. B. ; 
the nearest approach they ever make to greatness 
and celebrity. 

The family and kindred of the writer had as 
many prodigies as any other household, consider- 
ing all things. Among them was a boy relative of 
the author, who, construing his mother’s dreams of 
his abilities to be facts, announced to us that he in- 
tended to be Emperor of the United States, and 
when he got seated on the throne, he would give us 
the State of Mississippi as a Princedom. We 
dreamed of this elevation for many months. Our 
title was to be Prince of Mississippi ; his, the Em- 
peror of the United States. We think he intended 
taking in Mexico and Canada later on, when he got 
finally seated. 

In a family residing near us, there were not less 
than four prodigies. Three of them would not be- 
lieve it, and so refusing to ascend the pedestal, re- 
mained ordinary boys and are to-day ordinary 
men. 

But the fourth graciously received the maternal 
prophecies and prognostications, and added to the 
sum of the original statement a compound interest 
of personal expectation and general day dreaming 
of his own. One day while wandering through the 


THE HOUSEHOLD PRODIGY. 1 49 

fields near his home, he entered a deep cut made 
for the passage of the country road, through a 
ridge, and observing the smooth surface of the red 
clay walls on either hand, he could not refrain from 
carving with his barlow knife in very large letters 
and in a very conspicuous place on the bank, his 
own name in full, and underneath that, quite a start- 
ling piece of information. The words were : 
“CHARLES AUGUSTUS SMITH, 

The Hope of The South.” 

Having thus relieved himself, Charles Augustus 
climbed up on the top of the bank and lay down to 
hear unseen the comment of the passersby. It was 
not long before he heard one. He wished after- 
ward that he had not listened. 

An old farmer was jogging along on his way 
to a grist mill with a sack of corn on his horse. 
He happened to observe the huge lettering on the 
smooth red clay. Stopping his horse and putting 
on his spectacles, he read with great deliberation ; 

“ Charles Agustus Smith, 

The Hope of the. South.” 

The two sentences seemed to interest him very 
much, for he read them over three times, and rub- 
bed his chin and scratched his jaw vigorously 
while he did so. Finally, taking off his glasses and 


PEN PICTURES. 


* 5 ° 

putting them back in their tin case with a snap, he 
started off down the road in a jog trot, and looking 
back over his shoulder, as his elbows flapped 
against his sides, he said aloud, not dreaming he 
was heard : 

“ Well, if that’s so — we are gone ! ” 

Perhaps it might be well to state that the South 
for some reason utterly failed to look to and lean 
upon Charles Augustus in her troubles, and so 
came to her final defeat and ruin. The public may 
now know for the first time why the seceding 
States went down. 

It might also be well to add that Mr. Smith, 
whose prefix is Charles Augustus, has been patiently 
following a mule up and down various corn and 
cotton furrows ever since the “Surrender,” en- 
gaged in the absorbing task of providing certain 
necessaries of life, like bread and meat, for a Mrs. 
Amanda Malvina Smith, and seven little Smiths, 
all of whom, no doubt, are prodigies, just as was 
their father before them. 


XIII. 


THE MAN WITH THE PROBLEM. 

'jpHE first time we ever met Walter Puzzled, he 
was twenty years of age. He had been soundly 
converted and was deeply spiritual, with an exceed- 
ingly tender conscience gravitating toward the 
morbid line. 

Raised in a denomination which believed in 
immersion, he had become captivated with the 
spirit and polity of the Methodist church. Called 
to preach the gospel, and i’n harmony with 
most of the doctrines of Methodism, he was deeply 
desirous of laboring in her borders and with her 
people, but was kept back from the step by the 
simple fact that he did not believe in Infant Bap- 
tism. 

He had given up his belief in immersion, with 
other doctrines of the denomination to which he 
belonged ; was deeply attached to the Methodist 
people, and a warm defender of her tenets, but there 
was the Infant Baptism question, which he could 
not agree to, and not believing in that, his con- 
scientious mind would not allow him to take the 
( 151 ) 


! 5 2 


PKN PICTURES. 


step of joining the followers of Wesley and mak- 
ing application to preach in their midst. 

There was the call to preach burning in his 
soul ; there were the Methodists ready to receive 
him and license him promptly ; there was the wide 
world lying all around with souls perishing for the 
gospel ; but there also was that Infant Baptism 
problem which he could not solve, and which he 
felt must be settled before he could enter the fields 
which he himself admitted were white unto the 
harvest. 

Bro. Puzzled lived on the farm of his parents, 
about two miles from the town where the writer of 
this sketch was stationed. So that he saw him 
frequently, both at his home, on the street, and in 
church on the Sabbath. But whenever he beheld 
him he always bore on his face the anxious, intent 
look of a man working out a tremendous problem. 
The far-away gaze in his eye, the dreamy voice, 
the corrugated brow almost gave one the headache 
in pure sympathy for the mental labor going on. 

It mattered not where we came across Brother 
Puzzled, he carried with him that anxious and ab- 
stracted air. Sitting with the family on the front 
porch, or gazing at the preacher from his pew, or 
leaning against his father’s barn, or resting cross- 


THE MAN WITH THE PROBLEM. 1 53 

l e gg e d on the fence, he always carried that mys- 
tified look with him. He was wrestling with the 
Infant Baptism question. 

He told the writer at different times, with 
months between, that he thought he was obtaining 
light on the subject ; but his face did not indicate 
it, and his actions, or rather non-action, gainsaid 
the speech. 

After twelve months’ acquaintance with young 
Puzzled, the Conference to which the writer be- 
longed sent him to a distant work, where in a 
year’s time he secured two churches for his de- 
nomination, one deeded, the other built ; had a 
number of revivals, saw several hundred people 
converted and join the church, and then returned 
on a visit to the town where Brother Puzzled 
lived, to find that he was mentally and problemat- 
ically just where he had left him a year before. 

He never felt, he said, the call to preach clearer. 
He never felt the need to go out at once and save 
perishing souls more so than now, but he could not 
yet see his way clear to go on account of the Infant 
Baptism question. Still he thought he was getting 
light, and he had told his father and mother that they 
must prepare to give him up, and run the farm with 
his brother, who was a year younger than himself. 


*54 


PEN PICTURES. 


Our next absence was one of two years in 
length. In the meantime, being in another part 
of the State, we heard nothing of our friend. So 
on arrival we at once asked if he had joined the 
church or gone into the ministry, and was answered 
in the negative by a gentleman who was interested 
in him. He said that Brother Puzzled was troubled 
about the Infant Baptism question. 

We learned from another party who had known 
Walter Puzzled longer than the other, that the 
question was getting deeper with him, that George, 
the younger brother, told him that Walter studied 
the subject so deeply and so absorbingly that he 
would lean motionless on his plow or sit buried in 
thought on the fence, while he (George) would run 
four or five furrows. 

“Sometimes,” said George, “I feel like pro- 
testing to brother Walter, and telling him to do his 
plowing in the day and think over that Infant Bap- 
tism question at night ; that his worrying over that 
doctrine is putting double work on me ; but he looks 
so . much in earnest about the matter that I have not 
the heart to tell him that I am doing my work on 
the farm and his also.” 

This spirit of protest was only occasional with 
George. As a rule he felt proud of Walter, not 


THE MAN WITH THE PROBLEM. 155 

that he had accomplished anything in life, but was 
going to do so. He felt that his brother was marked 
for a high calling and great destiny ; that while he 
was a little slow in getting at his work, yet this he 
was sure was occasioned by the magnitude of the 
doctrinal problem and the tremendous nature of the 
conclusions that Walter was about to draw from his 
reflections. So that the deeper Walter’s cogitations 
were, the more profoundly impressed was George. 

One day when Walter Puzzled was thirty years 
old, still talking about the life-calling awaiting 
him, and the work he was yet to do, his father 
said : 

“My son, I believe you think your life-work is 
going to come up the road to meet you headed by 
a brass band.” 

The son looked so pained at this that the father 
alluded to the matter no more. 

When he was thirty-five years old, with the 
problem still unsolved, a blunt-spoken preacher 
gave him a great shock by saying : 

“And so, Walter, a question of a few spoon- 
fuls of water on a baby’s head has kept you out of 
the active service of God for fifteen years.” 

Walter coughed and cleared his throat and said 
his conscience would not let him be a Methodist 


PEN PICTURES. 


156 

preacher, when he did not believe in Infant Bap- 
tism. 

“Well, then, be a Baptist preacher,” urged his 
friend. 

“lean not,” he replied, “because I do not 
believe in the doctrines of that church.” 

“ Well, what are you going to do? Will you 
sit on the fence all the days of your life, getting 
ready to make a start, to begin to commence to do 
something?” 

Walter swallowed a big lump in his throat and 
answered, 

“ As soon as I settle the Infant Baptism ques- 
tion, I expect to enter the active work of the min- 
istry.” 

“The preacher looked at him steadily for a 
moment and said, 

“If the mothers of the land put a gallon of water 
on their children every day in the name of decency 
and cleanliness, I do not think that God will count 
it a sin on your part if you pour a cupful on their 
heads in the name of the Lord, who made both the 
water and the child ! ’ ’ 

The last time we saw Walter Puzzled he was 
forty years old, and his hair gray. He was still on 
the farm and, so to speak, still on the fence. He 


THE MAN WITH THE PROBLEM. 157 

still sat on stumps and logs in deep meditation, and 
still cogitated in the field, resting on the beam of 
his plow, while George, now a married man, would 
throw up five furrows to his one. Myriads of sin- 
ners had died and gone to hell, whom God had 
called him to warn and save, but the qnestion of 
the application of a cupful of water to an innocent 
baby had been such a grave matter to him that he 
could not leave it to attend to a life call, and a 
divine call at that, of everlasting moment. 

All the new preachers who came to the town as 
pastors would be much taken with Walter at first. 
They would have long talks with him, loan him 
books on baptism, etc., etc. But after a few months 
they would begin to wear peculiar smiles when his 
name was mentioned, give a dry cough and even 
laugh aloud. 

Five years have passed since we last saw 
Walter. He is now a white haired man of forty- 
five. Recently the writer met a preacher, who 
had just been sent to the town near which Brother 
Puzzled resides. He told qs that there was a very 
interesting case two miles from town. 

We of course begged for information. 

He then informed us that there was a deeply 
spiritual man who came to his church, and was 


PEN PICTURES. 


158 

undoubtedly called of God to preach, and could he 
be once convinced, would do great good in the 
the world, but he would not join his church, or 
enter the ministry because of a single doctrinal 
difficulty. 

“May I tell you what it is?” we asked. 

“Yes, if you can.” 

“It is the question of Infant Baptism,” we 
replied. 

“How did you know that,” asked the preacher. 

“Because he has been worrying with it a 
quarter of a century. In 1875 he was right where 
you see him to-day.” 

The preacher gave a long, low whistle. 

“If you see him again soon, tell him, please, that 
you heard a man say that twenty-five years ago he 
was the most spiritual and promising every way of 
a dozen young Christian men whom he knew in 
his town ; that eleven of these young men have 
gone forth under the leadings of Christ and brought 
thousands of souls to God, while he, naturally 
more gifted, and once far ahead of them spiritually, 
has lost a lifetime in worrying over a non-essential 
doctrine.” 


XIV. 


THE DISCONTENTED MAN. 

^OME time since, while on a southern trip, we 
encountered a character at the table of a hotel. 
He possessed a querulous voice, fault-finding 
nature, and was of course a discontented man. 
He wore the wearied look belonging to such a 
spirit. As we studied his case, he seemed to be con- 
tinually apprehensive that various and sundry 
personal rights would be taken from or denied 
him. 

One morning at breakfast he called for “aigs,” 
as he termed them. As the waiter started to leave, 
he cried out after him, 

“I don’t want them aigs hard boiled.” 

Then followed several minutes of anxious wait- 
ing upon his part. He kept turning his head rest- 
lessly toward the door which led to the kitchen. 
Finally, at the expiration of four or five minutes, he 
fairly wailed out to the invisible servant, 

“I just know them aigs is hard boiled.” 

It wo'uld be impossible to transcribe in words 

the look of trouble on the man’s face, and the 
(159) 


j6o PEN PICTURES, 

accent of sorrow, not to say despair, in his voice, as 
he prophesied and grieved about the eggs. 

The air, look and voice perfectly agreed in 
protestation and lamentation. It was evident to 
anyone at a glance that at this moment, to this 
man, the world was a mockery and life itself a 
failure, and all because “them aigs were hard 
boiled,” 

As we continued to study the bereaved individ- 
ual before us, we realized again not only the 
blessedness, but the philosophy of full salvation ; 
that God had a work of grace for the soul, which 
enables one to rejoice, not only when certain 
things are not to one’s notion, but even in the loss 
of all things to be self-contained and happy. The 
perfectly tranquil life is that, where the man says 
Amen at the severing of every cord which binds 
him to earth and earthly things. It is these very 
terrestrial objects which create such disturbance in 
the human heart and life, and so that grace of 
God, which breaks their charm and sweeps away 
their power, will of necessity bring a reign of 
unbroken peace and holy gladness to the soul. 

Some months after this occurrence we were 
spending a few days in a large boarding house 
in a city several hundred miles from the town just 


THE DISCONTENTED MAN. j6l 

mentioned. One morning, while glancing over a 
newspaper, in the large reading room allotted 
to the guests, there came in through the open 
window from the gallery outside a perfect string 
of vocal jerking sounds like Bah ! Pooh ! Pshaw I 
Bosh ! Nonsense ! Botheration ! These were ac- 
companied by an angry rustling of^ a newspaper, 
scraping of the chair, and now and then the fall 
of a heavy heel on the floor. 

The voice with its nasal, whining intonation 
was masculine and strangely familiar. Rising up 
and going to the window, we saw, tilted back on 
two legs of a chair, with his feet high up against a 
post, our friend who had wailed so over the “hard 
boiled aigs.” 

The lady of the house happened at the time to 
be passing through the rooms, and we asked her if 
she knew anything about the gentleman who was 
reading the paper out on the porch. 

At once she began smiling, and taking a seat re- 
mote from the window she, with difficulty, straight- 
ened her face, and said : 

“That’s Mr. Spears. Everybody around here 
knows him. He is a man of some little property 
and travels around a good deal. He is too rest- 
less to stay anywhere long. He seems to be 


162 


PEN PICTURES. 


soured with the whole world and nothing pleases 
him.” 

“ Is he a sick man? ” we asked. 

“ No, indeed. There’s nothing the matter with 
him that way, though he insisted for a long time 
there was. He went to all the Springs in the 
country, and every health resort in the mountains 
or on the sea shore. He has had every physician 
in his town at one time or another, and discharged 
them all, saying they didn’t have sense enough to 
know what was the matter with him. He said it 
was the doctor’s business to find out the trouble 
and cure a man, and that they could if they were doc- 
tors ; but they are all quacks these days, he says.” 

Very much interested, I kept silent, while the 
lady went on. 

“ The last physician discharged Mr. Spears and 
told him there was nothing in the world the matter 
with him, but to follow a pair of plow handles to 
make his own bread, instead of having it come in 
to him without a struggle. He told him that any 
man who ate as much as he did ought never to go 
to the Springs for an appetite, or say he was sick. 
Mr. Spears fairly foamed at this speech, but he had 
to take it, for the doctor was a big man and fully 
able to stand by what he said.” 


THE DISCONTENTED MAN. 163 

“ What is the matter with Mr. Spears this morn- 
ing?” I inquired. “He seems to be all out of 
sorts.” 

“Oh, he’s just reading the newspaper. He 
allows what he sees there to completely upset him. 
He believes all that the reporters and editors and 
correspondents say, and is thrown into a regular 
fever every time he takes up the paper. He is 
firmly convinced that everything is going to the 
dogs ; declares there have been no great men since 
the days of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, no 
president since Andrew Jackson, and that the 
nation is on the verge of ruin. He even insists 
that the corn does not grow as high as it did when 
he was a boy, and says the Mississippi River is 
filling up and will soon spread out, cover all the 
plantations with mud and then dry up.” 

Our informant had gotten this far when she was 
interrupted by a loud, petulant exclamation from 
Mr. Spears on the gallery, while he dropped both 
his heels on the floor with a resounding thwack. 

“Just as I expected,” he groaned,” “What 
on earth is to become of us? ” 

“What’s the matter now, husband?” said a 
good humored voice farther down the gallery. 

“Everything’s the matter,” said the worried 


PEN PICTURES. 


164 

looking man, referring again to his paper. “ Here 
on the first page is an account of how the big trees 
in California are being rapidly destroyed, and on 
the second page an article telling of the rapid and 
wholesale disappearance of the pine forests in the 
South by the sawmills and turpentine business. 
Why, wife, there soon won’t be a tree left.” 

“Yes, I read the article before you did,” she 
replied soothingly, “ and when you read farther, 
you will notice that the writer admits that while 
what he says is true, yet so vast are these forests 
that it will take several centuries to entirely denude 
the land, and you know that you and I will not be 
here then.” 

“That may be so,” replied Mr. Spears, look- 
ing a little appeased; “but there is our posterity ; 
what’s to become of them?” 

“Oh,” said the cheerful wife, “don’t you worry 
about your posterity. They will take care of them- 
selves.” 

Here Mr. Spears resumed his paper, indulging 
now and then, as he read, in sudden snorts, and 
loud pooh-poohs, and grumbling comments, that 
sounded not very much unlike a dog snarling and 
worrying over a bone. 

Finally the wife said soothingly to him : 


THE DISCONTENTED MAN. 


165 

“Mr. Spears, lay aside your paper awhile and 
take a walk down town. It will do you good.” 

“ I can go,” he replied, “but it won’t do me 
any good, for the whole town is going to the Old 
Scratch as fast as it can.” 

And so growling and grumbling about ballot 
boxes being stuffed, and miners not getting their 
rights, and whitecaps not being put down, and the 
Chinese and Hawaiians and Filipinos filling the 
whole country and no room left for a white man, 
Mr. Spears got up and stalked down the street, 
hitting the bricks with his walking cane as if he 
wanted to break every one of them. 

After he left, we were introduced to Mrs. Spears, 
a good, comfortable soul of fifty years or more. 

On expressing our regrets that Mr. Spears had 
found so much to be worried about in the papers 
that morning, she laughed a rich, merry laugh, 
and said : 

“ It is not just this morning, but every morning 
with my husband. He has changed his papers 
twenty times, but still continues to read them ; has 
joined four different churches, and belonged to 
three different parties, Republican, Democrat and 
Populist. He is now thinking of going back to 
the Republican party.” 


PEN PICTURES. 


1 66 

After a few more words with Mrs. Spears, who 
had all unconsciously aroused our profoundest 
sympathy, we said to her : 

“ Will you deliver a message to your husband 
from me ? ” 

“ Certainly,” she replied. 

“Tell him,” we continued, “that what he 
needs is a good case of regeneration, followed 
immediately by the blessing of entire sanctifica- 
tion, that if he gets these, he will ever after feel 
all right, whether the world is right or not.” 

* * * * * 

Two years from that morning, we met Mr. 
Spears for the third time. He was at a Holiness 
Camp Meeting and was standing on his feet testify- 
ing. His face was all aglow, his voice rang out 
with holy fervor, and we scarcely could recognize 
him as the same man. His wife sat near him as 
he spoke and she looked to be brimming over with 
joy. We heard this much of his testimony. He 
said : 

“I was the most miserable man that walked 
the earth. I worried about everything, and found 
fault with everybody. I marvel how my dear 
wife here managed to stand me. I wonder some- 
body didn’t kill me for being so contrary. 


THE DISCONTENTED MAN. 


167 

“Well, one day my wife told me that a preacher 
had left a message for me. I snapped out, ‘What 
is it?’ She said he requested me to say to you 
that you needed a good case of regeneration, and 
then a clear experience of entire sanctification. 

‘ ‘ Somehow that message went into my heart 
like an arrow. I said, if a stranger sees I need 
two things, I must be bad off. 

“Of course I fussed about it, and called the 
message a piece of impertinence, but I could not 
get rid of the words. They put me in the way of 
salvation thinking, and salvation getting. I made 
some big mistakes at first, and thought it was water 
baptism I wanted ; but my wife told me I had 
been sprinkled when I was a baby, that she heard 
my mother say so. Well, then, I said I wanted to 
be sprinkled as a man ; what does a baby know 
about baptism? So I was re-baptized. Still I felt 
no better. 

“At last a Baptist preacher met me and told me 
what I needed was to go under the water. So 
down I went and came up in the Baptist Church, 
but still I had this gnawing, worried, restless, un- 
satisfied feeling here. Then somebody told me 
that there was a man in Chicago who believed in 
Triune Immersion, and so I took the train, made 


PEN PICTURES. 


1 68 

application, and went under the water three times, 
and came up in still another church. Wife there, 
bless her heart, went with me, not only to Chicago, 
but under the water, and under three times. I 
verily believe that woman would have made a 
didapper duck of herself, a regular mermaid, to 
have helped me to get right.” 

Here we looked at Mrs. Spears, who was cov- 
ered with pleased smiles, as with a garment, and 
was beaming on her husband. 

“In spite of all this,” continued Mr. Spears, 
“I did not feel satisfied. I began to remember 
that the third time I went under the water my right 
shoulder was not entirely covered, and was think- 
ing of going up to Chicago and having the whole 
thing done over, when I heard there was a big 
Holiness Camp Meeting to take place on this 
ground. This was a year ago. I came because I 
was miserable and didn’t know what else to do. 
Then I had some curiosity, from all the reports I 
had heard, about the Holiness people. 

“ Some of you will remember how I came to 
that altar the very first night for salvation, and how 
I got it on the third day. Then, you remember, I 
commenced seeking for entire sanctification. The 
preacher had said I needed two things, and now I 


THE DISCONTENTED MAN. 


169 

knew it. Thank God, on the last night of the 
meeting, after six days’ seeking with prayers, tears, 
groans and faith in Christ, God gloriously sancti- 
fied my soul. You all saw me, and heard me, too, 
that night. 

“ The instant I got it, I felt that that was what 
I had been wanting all my life. For one year I 
have lived not only in Canaan, but in Heaven. I 
feel the glory in my soul all the time. I can 
hardly keep from hollering on the street. I went 
to a small town the other day on business, where I 
didn’t know a soul, but I met an old negro and 
took him aside and told him I was sanctified. We 
both shouted behind a blacksmith shop. 

“Ugly as I am, when I look in the glass it 
seems I am getting good looking. My wife there 
looks like she is sixteen years old. The crops 
look better this year than I ever saw them in all 
my life, and the apples taste sweeter. I believe 
the world is getting better every day, and I don’t 
see what there is to keep back the millennium. 
Glory to God, I am saved, sanctified and satisfied. 
The blessing in my soul is getting richer, sweeter 
and bigger every day. I don’t see how I can 
hold any more. Thank God, Jesus lives in my 
soul all the time, and I am at last a happy man.” 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. 


'pHREE youths were in attendance upon a South- 
ern college. They belonged to one of the Secret 
Societies that usually are found among the young 
men of these places of education. The fraternity 
of which they were members was the most mysteri- 
ous of all the other secret clubs, and fairly luxuri- 
ated in their reputation of nerve-trying initiations, 
remote and spectral meetings in the woods, in the 
burning of different colored lights during their 
sessions, and strange, weird calls to one another 
that were only understood by themselves. 

It became necessary for this Secret Society to 
obtain possession of a human skull, and information 
reaching them in a private way that a lonely, 
neglected and almost forgotten graveyard was in 
the woods a mile southwest of the college, the Grand 
Mogul of this mysterious fraternity appointed three 
of its members to go forth after 12 o’clock on the 
first moonless night and secure a skull from one of 
the sepulchers. 

The youths thus selected for the trying work we 
(HO) 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. I^I 

will call A , C and H , their ag£s being 

eighteen, nineteen and twenty-two. H was 

the oldest. 

According to agreement they crept quietly out 
of their respective dormitories while the large col- 
lege clock in the belfry of the main building was 
tolling out the solemn notes of twelve. Like three 
shadows they flitted beneath the great trees of the 
campus, and met at the stile on the south side of 
the grounds. They spoke in whispers, and glanc- 
ing back, observed that every light was extin- 
guished in the college buildings. Even M , 

the hardest student among the five hundred, had 
gone to bed. 

On taking a silent inventory, A had a spade, 

C had secured a dark lantern, and H , 

who wore a light overcoat and had a small bundle 
under it, said it was a towel and soap to wash at 
the branch after the exhumation, and that he also 
carried under his arm, wrapped up, a pistol. 

C asked him what good it would do to shoot 

at ghosts. 

H snickered and said, noise laid spirits if 

it did nothing more; that anyhow he felt safer 
with the firearms. 

After these short whisperings the three boys 


172 


PEN PICTURES. 


slipped over the stile, gained the high road, and 
after a walk of three quarters of a mile through a 
field and then some shadowy woods, crossed a 
dark branch at the foot of a hill, where they were to 
wash their hands from the defilements of the grave. 
It was a gloomy ravine and the low, gurgling sound 
of the water coming out of and disappearing in the 
darkness was anything but reassuring. It had a 
strangling sound, and the boys wiped their faces 
and felt a most decided and rapid increase of the 
action of their hearts. 

Ascending the hill beyond, they came to its 
forest covered brow, and after a few yards saw in 
the dim starlight the left hand fork, which, much 
fainter than the main road, led away to the grave- 
yard they were seeking. The woods here became 
at once much thicker and wilder, as they left the 
highway, and they were compelled to light the 
dark lantern. 

H was left at the junction of the two roads 

to watch and give any needed alarm. This was 

his own suggestion, and A and C opposed 

it and insisted that he should stand at the edge of 
the cemetery. But H said it was barely a fur- 

long distant and this was the strategic point to 
guard and protect them, either by firing the pistol 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. 1 73 

to give them warning of interruption, or by step- 
ping down the road quickly to where they were 
digging and give the alarm. 

A and C were both now inwardly con- 
vinced that H had weakened and was a cow- 

ard. So they left him with mixed feelings, and, 
turning their lantern light up, pushed carefully 
along the dark road, which was made all the 
darker by the small glimmering lamp, as it actually 
intensified the shadows, and caused the great tree 
trunks to appear more spectral and solemn than 
they did in the starlight. 

They could hear the dripping of the dew as it 
fell from the leaves to the turf below. Then the 
woods would heave a sigh as if in unrest and sorrow 
about something. Once a great night bird almost 
swept their faces with his broad wings as he beat 
his startled way swiftly from them and vanished 
with a rustling sound in the tree tops. A screech 
owl with its sudden, startling cry made their hearts 
leap into their throats for a moment, and some 
kind of small animal of the forest gave them an- 
other shock as it rushed away through the under- 
brush at the sound of their steps. 

Several times they thought they heard foot- 
steps following them, but remembering that H 


174 


PEN PICTURES. 


was standing guard at the head of the road, and 
also failing to see anyone or anything on stopping 
and turning their light backward, they felt re- 
assured and pushed on. 

At last, after traversing a distance of fully three 
hundred yards from the main public road, they 
found themselves stumbling over headboards and 
into sunken graves, and knew they had reached the 
place they sought. 

There was considerable uncertainty about this 
graveyard, both at college and in town. Some 
said a battle had been fought there during the Civil 
War, and a number of soldiers had been buried in 
the woods by the side of this faint country road. 
Others said that the bodies of citizens, as well as 
soldiers, who had died in a large hospital up town, 
were interred here. There was still another 
report, but the facts were that here in the woods 
by the side of a faint trail or path, and several 
hundred yards from the highway, was a hundred 
graves all overshadowed with the great trees of a 
forest and almost hidden by a smaller growth 
springing up around and upon them. 

A and C selected a grave near the 

road, mainly, we suppose, with a view to keep 
their communications open toward civilization. A 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. 


175 


small opening in the trees allowed a little starlight 
to fall upon the head board and upper portion 
of the mound, but the lower part was in dense 
shadow from an unusually large and thick oak 
that flung its boughs over it. 

The lads lost no time in getting to work, and 
while one held the lantern, the other wielded the 
spade, and began to cast out the earth. They 
alternated with the work, and in one of their short 
resting spells they heard the college clock toll the 
hour of one. It sounded so faint, far away and 
solemn that they wished they had not heard it. 
After this nothing broke the awful stillness 
but the hoot of a distant owl and the mel- 
ancholy cry of a whippoorwill. 

They both worked when handling the spade 
with all their strength, for they were anxious to 
get through and be gone. Then the night wind 
gave an occasional sigh as if sorry at what they 
were doing, and the dropping of the dew from the 
branches sounded like the drip of blood. 

They had reached a depth of three feet, and 
C was in the grave, when in the act of pres- 

sing his foot on the spade, the whole thing under 
him caved in and he sank almost out of sight from 
A -,who sat squatted with the lamp in his hand 


PKN PICTURES. 


176 

on the ground above. The shock to C was 

terriffic ; though he went down only three feet, yet 
to him it felt and seemed a thousand. To add to the 
horror, he landed on the head of the dead man, 
or more truly speaking, the skull of the skel- 
eton. 

C clambered out up to A with a ce- 

lerity that was remarkable, bathed in a cold sweat 
and exceedingly agitated. The lads discussed 
the happening in whispers, and saw that the man 
had not been buried in a coffin, but in a large box 
fully three feet deep ; that the lid or top had not 
sunken in during the past years, for there was no 

pressure upon it until C ’s full weight, with the 

entering spade had broken through the decayed 
plank and let him down suddenly into the bottom 
of the grave and in the midst of the bones. 

After a while C crept back into the grave, 

and feeling around in the dark, found the skull, 
caught it in his left hand and standing erect, 

started to climb out. Just then A gave an 

exclamation of horror, and in alow, startled voice 
said to C , 

“ Just look yonder !” 

C quickly turned and there, near the foot 

of the grave, stood a white form. In another 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. 1 77 

second the figure stretched out an arm and said in 
a low, blood-curdling tone, 

“ Let my bones alone !” 

How C got out of the grave he never knew, 

only that in a moments time he was out dashing for 
the road, but still holding to the skull. 

A had flung his lamp away in his terror, 

and was now speeding with all his might for the 

main road and college. C , in endeavoring to 

follow him, tripped over a small tree lying in his 
path and tumbled over and over on the ground in 
one direction, while the skull, struck from his 
hand by the violence of the fall, rolled in 
another. 

It would have been impossible to have found it 

in the dark, and C , knowing that it would be 

unkind as well as disregardful of the rights of the 
true owner of the skull to try to obtain it again, 

and feeling that it was his duty to assist A in 

getting at once out of the woods, and not allow 
him to have that long, lonely run to the college 
entirely without companionship, and recognizing 
a great increasing, inward craving for the sight of 
human habitations and the presence of living 
beings who wore their own skulls, gathered him- 
self together and struck out after A with the 


1^8 PEN PICTURES. 

greatest singleness of mind and doubleness of 
strength . 

As they came panting to the junction of the two 
roads, H was not to be seen. They were con- 

vinced, as they had suspected before, that he was 
a coward and had slunk back to college and left 
them with the whole job, and now the whole ter- 
ror on their hands. 

Under healthy and proper conditions neither 

A nor C believed in ghosts or supernatural 

appearances. But nearly a mile from college, in 
the woods, with the ghastly happening in the 
graveyard still blistering the memory, they were 
not in the mental frame to speak coolly and delib- 
erately upon the subject. They felt more like run- 
ning than anything else, and so with an intense 
desire to be close to actual living folks again, they 
swept into the public road, flew down the slope of 
the hill, leaped the little branch that was still 
strangling and choking in the darkness, and 
pantingly sped up the ascent on the other side, 
A still leading and C closely following. 

The boys reached the College at last, and as 
they pulled themselves over the stile felt, from the 
nervous shock and the run of a mile without stop- 
ping, that they were more dead than alive. 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. j 79 

Creeping to one of the pumps, they quietly 
washed their hands and bathed their crimson 
faces, drank copious draughts of the pure, cool 
fluid, and then stole away to their rooms. 

On meeting H next day, A and C 

were at first very cool and dignified, which he re- 
turned with interest. They, then, taking him aside, 
demanded to know why he forsook his post and 
left them in the lurch. 

To their surprise he warmly and firmly denied 
having left them, but said a man had gone by his 
post where he was concealed, and he had walked 
forty or fifty yards up the public road to see if he 
had gone on, and was returning to his position by 

the forks of the road when he saw A and 

C coming out of the woods and flying down 

the highway like the Devil was after them ; that 
he supposed it was a trick to leave him alone in 
the woods, and that he had followed them back to 
College slowly and feeling justly offended. 

A and C had before promised each other 

to say nothing of the startling apparition at the 
grave, feeling that no one would believe them, that 

every boy would laugh at them, and H would 

tease them continually and unmercifully. So they 
replied that they did not intend to leave him in the 


i8o 


PEN PICTURES. 


forest alone, but they fancied they were discovered 
at the grave by some midnight prowler and had fled, 

and that not finding H at the forks of the 

road, they naturally supposed he had forsaken them 
and gone back to the college. 

H seemed somewhat pacified at this, but 

tried to get A and C to describe more 

explicitly their interruption. Was it a young or 
old man? Was he small or large? Did he say 
anything or not? 

To these questions the two friends answered 
that they did not stop to examine the intruder, 
they only knew that they were discovered by 
somebody who came upon them in the midst of 
their work, and that knowing if they were found 
out they would be punished, both by the College 
Faculty and town officials, they had simple ske- 
daddled. 

To the repeated question, Did he say anything 
to you, their reply was, “only enough for us to 
know he knew what we were doing.” 

H had to be satisfied with this, for he 

could get nothing more out of the two boys. 

A week later the local paper contained an item, 
which created a buzz for some days, both in the 
town and college. It read as follows : 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. 


1 8 1 


“While Mr. Montague, our County Surveyor, 
was running a line near the old graveyard a mile 
south of the College, he discovered that one of the 
graves had been recently opened. He found a 
spade in the grave, a dark lantern a few feet distant, 
a small piece of white cloth hanging on a thorn 
bush, and thirty or forty feet away a human skull. 
He with his two men replaced the skull in the grave, 
threw the dirt back and replanted the head board. 
But to him as well as to us the affair is shrouded in 
mystery. Why should the grave be opened? Why 
should the lantern and spade be left? And if these 
disturbers of the dead wanted the skull, why should 
they go to all the pains to get it out, and then cast 
it away ? It is to be hoped that these transgressors 
will be brought to light and properly punished.” 

A , C and H together could have 

answered most of these questions, but it was to 
their interest not to do so, and so the talk died away 
and the circumstance ceased to be thought of by the 
public. 

It was a long time, however, before A 

an( i C slept soundly through a whole night. 

Both had distressing dreams, and had only to 
close their eyes, after their room lamps were 
extinguished at night, to see a white figure and 


182 


PEN PICTURES. 


hear a low, grating voice saying, “ Let my bones 
alone.” 

* * * * 

The three boys of this sketch left college the 

the same year. A was a brilliant fellow and 

would have distinguished himself in the profession 
he chose, but he died just one year after leaving the 

university. C , after a few years, entered the 

ministry and was sent to a distant great city. H 

became a prominent lawyer and was made a judge. 

Something like ten or fifteen years after they left 

college, one day C received a letter from H . 

It was quite short, but it had a tremendous effect 
on the reader. It ran thus : 

Dear C , 

“ Let my bones alone.” 

H . 

It was a perfect study to watch the countenance 

of C . No pen description could do justice to 

the varying expressions that rapidly followed each 
other over his face. Astonishment and wonder of 
mind, twitching of mouth, pulling at moustache, 
biting of lips, a curious sparkle in the eye, with a 
part dazed, part ashamed, part vexed and part 
amused look, all striving together in a most won- 
derful manner on the same countenance. In fact, 


A TRYING EXPERIENCE. 


183 


for a while it was difficult to say what would be the 
final outcome and lasting expression. Of course 
there would be a survival of the fittest, but which 
was the fittest ? 

The next mail carried C ’s reply : 

Dear H , 

You old rascal you ! I wish I was in 
arm’s length of your body, and verily you should 
have better cause than once before to say, “ Let my 
bones alone ! ’ ’ This time you would have positive 
need to say it, for on this occasion I would not let 
your bones alone. You surely belong to the Bona- 
parte family. Anyhow you were in the past a super- 
natural fraud, and I gravely fear you are still a 
humbug. Nevertheless, as I ran off with your 
skull, of course you can not help being such things, 
and so I freely forgive you. 

Your old college friend, 

C . 


XVI. 


A STRANGE VISITOR. 

T ET NOT the reader suppose from the caption 
^ of this chapter that strange visits and visitors 
are a rare occurrence to the writer. Some have 
been remarkable above all description, and many- 
most unusual. But numbers were paid in strictest 
confidence, and in numerous cases what was said 
and confided was with the understanding that all 
was in the light and protection of a sacred con- 
fessional, and so the history of those hours will 
never be written by the author, and will go with 
him, unknown by the world, to the Judgment Day. 

But the case represented in this chapter had no 
embargo of promised secrecy upon it, and is used, 
in its simple description of a morning call, as a 
window through which the reader can look upon 
a peculiar phase of that always interesting thing, 
a human life. 

I was busily writing at my desk one afternoon, 
in a hotel in a certain town, when there came a tap 
at the door. Burdened with the thought of several 
chapters to write to complete an unfinished book, 
( 184 ) 


A STRANGE VISITOR. 


185 


an article to pen for one of the religious papers, 
and a great pile of unanswered letters before me, I 
glanced up from my work with a sigh, and said : 

44 Come in.” 

The door opened and a plain looking man of 
about forty, having the appearance of a farmer, 
entered. Closing the door behind him, he drew 
near several paces and made a peculiar bow, with 
one hand resting upon his knee and bending side- 
ways. With an earnest face and grave voice he said : 

44 I hope you will excuse me, sir, but I want to 
see you, for I am in trouble.” 

The word 4 4 trouble ’ ’ was sufficient to banish 
my last regret at being disturbed in my work, and 
I said kindly to him : 

“Take a seat, sir, and tell me what I can do 
for you.” 

He placed his hat on the floor between his feet,* 
and looking fixedly at me with a pair of melan- 
choly black eyes, said : 

44 1 hate to interrupt you, sir, for I know you 
must be a busy man, but I felt drawn to come. I 
want you to dissolve a great mystery for me. Will 
you answer me some questions?” 

44 I do not know that I can, but I will trv,’ ? 
was my reply. 


PEN PICTURES. 


1 86 

“ Well, I am a man who sees sights. They 
come to me. Now what I want to know is, is it 
the sympathy of the flesh, or the substance of the 
spirit?” 

“ I don’t think I understand your last remark, ” 
I said. 

The man repeated the words exactly, rubbing 
his chin reflectively with his hand, while inclining 
his body toward me and fixing on me a most anx- 
ious look. 

“ Who is it you see?” I inquired. 

“ My wife. She is dead and in her grave, but 
appears to me every twenty-four hours.” And the 
man’s eyes filled with tears. 

“My dear sir,” I replied, “I do not believe 
such appearances are actual or real, but arise from 
one’s own mental condition* They spring from 
your own fancy.” 

“Fancy!” exclaimed the man scornfully. 
“Why, sir, I hold her in my arms.” 

“ Still, I can not but think, ” said I, “ that 
your constant thought of your wife creates the im- 
pression or vision which you regard as a reality.” 

“ It is a reality,” replied the man warmly, 
“ and I came here hoping you would dissolve 
the mystery. I am an ignorant man, never had 


A STRANGE VISITOR. 


187 

any schooling, and hoped you could help me.” 

“ I don’t see,” I answered, 44 what I can do for 
you ; for granting that it is a real manifestation or 
spiritual appearance, the Bible forbids any effort on 
our part to hold communion with the spirit world, 
or the dead.” 

44 Butthey come to me,” cried the man, getting 
up out of his chair. 44 But I won’t disturb you any 
more,” and he started for the door. 

A feeling of profound pity for the bereaved 
man swept over my heart and caused me to say 
gently and kindly to him. 

44 How long has your wife been dead? ” 

44 Just forty-three days. And oh how I loved 
her ! You never saw such a woman, straight as an 
arrow and fine-looking, and everybody said she 
had the finest figure they ever saw.” 

44 And you say she comes back to you?” 

44 Yes sir. The night after the funeral she woke 
me up calling me, and as I opened my eyes, I saw 
her standing by the bed. 4 What’s the matter, 
dear,’ I said. And she said, 4 I am cold,’ and crept 
into bed with me, and I took the cover and wrap- 
ped it round her and drew her to my heart. Oh, 
how I love her !” 

There was a minute’s silence, in which the man 


1 88 PEN PICTURES. 

seemed to labor for breath and looked as if his 
heart would break. Then he resumed, 

“ She kept coming to me night after night, till 
I felt something must be wrong, and one night she 
told me something about her body. So the next 
day I hired a man to go to the graveyard with me, 
and we dug her up.” 

“ How did she look? ” 

“ Oh her face was peaceful, but what she had 
told me about her body was just as she said,” and 
the man related things that we do not repeat. 

“ What did you do then?” 

‘ ‘ I put all the flowers back in the coffin with 
her, and reburied her.” 

“ And does she still return?” 

“Yes, every twenty-four hours,” and the man’s 
face was a study with its expression of mingled 
suffering and joy. “ Sometimes when I see her she 
is in one place, and next time in another. Not 
long ago I saw her one night and she seemed to be 
in a foreign country, and appeared to be another 
man’s wife ; but I went right up and took hold of 
her. O how I love her ! ” 

At this the man buried his face in his hands, and 
I could see the tears trickling through the closed 
fingers. After a pause of fully a couple of minutes, 


A STRANGE VISITOR. ^189 

in which not a word was spoken on either side, 
and I heard a church bell ringing in the distance, 
he lifted his face and said, 

“ I saw her again last night, and she was lead- 
ing a child by the hand. Her head was drooped so 
that I could not see her face, but I knew it was her. 
Oh, I always know her ! And I went straight up 
to her and put my arms around her.” 

There was no questioning the man’s genuine- 
ness. The honest face, clear truthful eyes, drip- 
ping tears, and unmistakable sorrow forbade any 
idea of trickery or deception of any kind. 

44 Sometimes,” he continued, 4 4 1 wonder why I 
was ever born, I have been through so much trouble. 
When I was a child, my mother was drowned in a 
freshet. I was a baby and was washed from the 
house down the stream a hundred yards, and the 
wind filled my little night dress and I was blown, 
they say, on some driftwood, where they found me. 
Why did God let me live to see such sorrow as has 
come to me since that time?” 

' The man’s sighs and sobs were pitiful to hear. 
“Then,” he continued, when I was a boy, I 
was raised by people who nearly beat me to death. 
I reckon they would have killed me, but my father 
stole me away from them. Even then I used to have 


190 


PEN PICTURES. 


the strangest visions. One year they were awful, 
but after that they became beautiful and rested me 
like.” 

“ Do you only see your wife?” I interrupted. 

“ No. Twice I have seen Christ, and I knew it 
was Him.” 

“ Are you a Christian?” 

“Yes, God knows I am. And yet I wonder why 
He let me live to see so much trouble.” 

“Suppose we kneel down together,” I said, 
“ and let us talk to God about it all.” 

So we got down on our knees side by side, and 
with one hand upon the shoulder of the man who 
wept convulsively, I commended the broken heart 
by me, with all its past and present burdens, to 
Jesus. I begged the Saviour to let Him feel that 
all was well with his wife, that as she had died in 
the faith, that her soul was with God in heaven, and 
her body would sleep quietly and be raised on the 
morning of the Resurrection. I besought the Lord 
to give him strength to bear up in his lonely life, 
and be a true, faithful Christian in his sorrow as he 
had been in brighter, happier days ; that he might 
remember he owed certain duties to his children, 
and that he would be kind, strong and cheerful for 
their sakes and raise them so as to meet their 


A STRANGE VISITOR. 


I 9 I 

mother in heaven ; that He himself should be kept 
true through everything, until after a faithful, use- 
ful Christian life, he would rejoin his wife in the 
skies, and the broken ties of earth be reunited for- 
ever. 

As we arose, the man had ceased his distressing 
sobs, and with a pathetically faint smile on his face, 
he grasped my hand and said, 

“You are a noble man. I thank you for that 
prayer. It has done me so much good. My heart 
here don’t ache so much.” 

“ I am certainly very glad,” I cordially replied, 
“ that I have been able to help you.” 

“Well, indeed you have. And now, sir, good- 
bye. I must get back home to the children. I live 
four miles from town, and when I’m gone long the 
children miss me. They’ve got nobody but me now 
to take care of them. You ought to see them run to 
meet me when I come in the big gate. I take one 
on each shoulder and the other one rides on my 
back.” Here he fell into a musing fit for a mo- 
ment with a pleasant smile as if he was back home 
with his children, and then resumed : 

“ People round the neighborhood say I am 
crazy because I said I see my wife. Crazy, I say ! 
Can a crazy man raise first-class crops, like I do? 


192 


PEN PICTURES. 


I make money every year. Do crazy people make 
money? There isn’t a merchant in this town but 
would give me credit, and honor my orders for 
goods and groceries. Would they do that to crazy 
folks? I pay all my debts promptly. Do crazy 
people pay their debts? No, sir, I’m not crazy, or a 
fool either. But I do see those things. Goodbye, 
sir, I must go. The children are waiting now for 
me at home.” 

The door closed, the footsteps died away in the 
hall, and my strange visitor was gone as suddenly 
as he had come. 

I resumed my seat at my writing table, and 
cheek on hand, sat listening to the faint, far-off 
sound of the church bell that was ringing again. 
But it was a long time before I could call in my 
pensive, wandering thoughts and resume the inter- 
rupted work of my pen. 


XVII. 


A MODERN DOUBLE. 

QN being sent to a certain church when the writer 
was in the itinerant connection, one of the 
first persons to greet and fairly bubble over upon 
him was the subject of this sketch. In spite of the 
fervent welcome, however, the impression made 
upon the preacher was not of the most desirable 
character. There was a strange inward shrinking 
from the bland and verbose personage before him. 

The first thing that struck the pastor in the new 
acquaintance, was that he was over-anxious to 
please. Of course we owe to one another kind 
and courteous treatment in this world, and gentle- 
ness, considerateness and politeness are mighty in- 
struments for doing good, and even spreading the 
Gospel among the nations. But this man was too 
bland and kind, and too smiley and gushey for his 
own good, and for the securing of the best regard 
in the minds and hearts of his fellow creatures. 
He was so over-assiduous to please that he failed 
to please and aroused suspicions instead in regard 
to his motives and character, like some preach- 
( 193 ) 


1 94 - 


pen PICTURES. 


ers all have known who have forgotten the ex- 
alted character of their calling, ceased to bear 
themselves as ambassadors from the Court of 
Heaven, and degenerated into the spirit, prac- 
tice, wiles, tricks, stereotyped smirk and perpetual 
handshake of the politician. 

A handshake can be made a means of grace ; 
but we have seen it drift with some men entirely 
into the mechanical realm, and the flying arms of 
a pastor had no more love, grace and unction in 
their manipulation, than exists in the canvas-cov- 
ered limbs of a whirling windmill. Kindness and 
love are all right : but evident over-anxiousness 
to please defeats the very object that the mind has 
in view. 

Bro. Sandford was too bubbly. He ran after 
his game too fast and hard. He tried to appear 
fond, when he really fawned. He overdid the 
thing, and became too sweet. He was sickening 
sweet. 

A second fact that impressed itself on the writer 
about Bro. Sandford was, that whenever he spoke 
to him, he would place his hand by the side of his 
mouth so as to fence off his breath from the minis- 
ter. 

At first it was regarded as a mere habit. Later 


A MODERN DOUBLE. 


*95 


the charitable supposition was that the brother 
might have been breakfasting or dining on onions, 
and did not desire his preacher to be regaled with 
the strong odor of that Egyptian vegetable. But 
one day Bro. Sandford forgot to study which way 
the wind was blowing, and at the same time in the 
eagerness of his conversation neglected to raise his 
breath shield, in the shape of his hand, and the 
consequence was that the pastor received into his 
astonished and shocked face an overpowering puff 
of whisky-laden atmosphere ! 

A third occurrence in this strange life about 
this time was the blowing down of one of Bro. 
Sandford ’s chimneys by a high wind one night. 
The reader well knows the peculiar shape of a 
side chimney in many houses. It would be hard 
to find anything in brick architecture that looks 
more like a large whisky bottle. As the chim- 
ney in question had stood for years protecting a 
certain amount of the dwelling from the effect 
of the sun, wind and weather, of course when it 
fell with a crash in the yard, it left its own shape 
and image as if painted in the most unmistakable 
way against the end of the building. It was 
plainly visible to all who looked, and everybody 
seemed to behold it, and everybody was smiling, 


196 


PEN PICTURES. 


or laughing outright, about this wind cartoon, this 
ironical conduct of the storm. 

One man said as he looked at the large sign of 
the bottle against the house, “Be sure your sin 
will find you out.” 

A fourth fact in the life of Bro. Sandford was 
his devotion to a certain temporal and physical side 
of the church, known as out-door celebrations, 
amusements and frolics. 

It is true that he always sat in the Amen Corner 
on the Sabbath, and was the picture of religious 
respectability and moral solidity there with his 
clean-shaved face and Sunday suit. But he never 
prayed in public, and never spoke in class. He 
was a kind of motionless pillar, not to say sleeper 
of the church. But in the ecclesiastical recreation 
business, whether of the church or Sunday-school, 
he loomed up over the horizon and shone as a star 
of the first magnitude. 

A Sunday-school picnic, church outing or some 
kind of railroad or steamboat excursion was the 
means of fairly glorifying Bro. Sandford. His 
face became a factory of smiles, and he actually 
looked ten years younger. He it was who super- 
intended the hanging of the swings, and he it was 
who gave the word “Go” to the children in their 


A MODERN DOUBLE. I 97 

races. Moreover he was the main man when it 
it came to the dinner hour on the grounds, and did 
more than any three women in emptying the 
baskets and placing the piles of delightfully cooked 
food on the sweet smelling cypress planks. 

He also always insisted on doing most of the 
carving of the chickens and turkeys at one end of 
the table, and seemed to forget to eat, so absorbed 
was he in the work of cutting up the broiled and 
roasted fowls and distributing, with most generous 
air, the same round about. 

It was while thus engaged that his face fairly 
beamed, and the sunlight flitting through the leafy 
treetops on his partially bald head, made an aureole 
of glory over his benevolent features. 

At the close of dinner Bro. Sandford taking his 
carefully covered wicker work basket, and retiring 
to the shade of a distant tree, would there light his 
pipe, and smoke, meditate and view the scene be- 
fore him with the blandest of smiles, and most fath- 
erly of expressions. 

But one day some young men not caring for 
the picnic banquet, had stretched themselves on 
the grass some little distance away, and lay idly 
smoking their cigars and watching the busy scene. 
Suddenly one gave a wondering exclamation, 


198 


PEN PICTURES. 


called another to his side, and with outstretched 
finger pointed to the end of the table where Bro. 
Sandford was officiating. In another moment all 
their heads were together, eyes bent in the same 
direction, and in five minutes they had ocular proof 
of the secret of that gentleman’s insistence upon 
filling the position of Chief Carver of Fowls. To 
their amazement they beheld the smiling wielder 
of the knife, while seemingly absorbed in the 
Christian, self-denying labor of helping others, yet 
with a quick, stealthy movement of hand, pitching 
into his own basket under the table, quarters and 
halves of almost every fowl that came under his 
touch. People all around were so busy eating, 
laughing and waiting on one another that the cun- 
ning theft practiced right before their eyes was not 
observed. But from the neighboring grassy mound 
where the young men were watching, the thief, 
the theft, the basket under the edge of the table, 
and the disappearing chickens were all plain to the 
view. Fully twenty people were quietly called to 
witness the sleight-of-hand performance. 

They also beheld the final scene of the closing 
act, when the covered basket was carried to a pri- 
vate place, and there, lying down on the grass in 
the shade, Bro. Sandford lighted his pipe and sur- 


A MODERN DOUBLE. 


I99 


veyed the scene of chatting groups and romping 
children with the look of a philanthropist, and the 
unmistakable air of a man who, by labor and sac- 
rifice, deserved well of his country and country- 
men. 

A fifth fact concerning the individual of this 
sketch was that he lived nearly twenty years after 
the occurrence just related. He was in the sev- 
enties when he gathered up his feet, turned his face 
to the wall, and with no expression of belief or un- 
belief, ended his earthly career. 

Sixth, the writer saw the widow of the deceased 
some months after the death of the husband. 
Dressed in deep black and face marked with deep- 
est woe, we scarcely ever met a sadder woman. 
She spoke continually of her consort’s life, death 
and perfections. She said with a gush of tears, 

“I miss Mi . Sandford more and more every day 
that goes by.” She also added, “If ever there 
was a pure Christian and good man on earth, Mr. 
Sandford was that man. 

Seventh, the deceased left a son who for moral- 
ity, integrity and beautiful Christian character 
stood first among the young men of his commu- 
nity. At last accounts he still enjoyed the favor 
of God and the esteem of men. 


200 


PEN PICTURES. 


The granite facts of this actual life history are 
seemingly so contradictory and antagonistic ; so 
upsetting to the claims of heredity ; so opposed to 
the judgment pronounced on deceitful men of not 
living out half their days, that one is fairly bewil- 
dered. At the same time just as clearly appear 
these well-known facts of the blindness of love, 
and the ghastly, dreadful verities of self-delusion, 
or darker still the deliberate practice of an unblush- 
ing hypocrisy. 

Much of the biography of the individual was 
personally known to the writer. The life volume 
is closed, gone into eternity, and will be opened 
at the Final Day. It will constitute one of the 
many surprises of that wonderful, revealing, con- 
summating Hour. 


XVIII. 


BITTER PILLS. 

JN the swamp country of the Land of Dixie, a 
disease is generated among its sloughs and low 
grounds called “The Chills.” This malady is 
known to be the result of malaria taken into the 
system. One curious feature of the sickness is, that 
while one hour the victim feels he is freezing, the 
next he is burning up. A second feature is a vio- 
lent shaking of the body and chattering of the 
teeth, both of which are perfectly uncontrollable 
while the ague is at its height. So serious are 
these shakings that it only requires a few returns 
of the same to loosen a man’s hold on this world 
and throw him into another. A third remarkable 
feature is that the day following the first chill, and 
generally called “ the second day,” seems to be a 
resting time granted by nature to the sufferer, that 
he might have a chance to recuperate and rally his 
forces before the disease appears again to give 
him another push toward the grave. This afore- 
said “ second day ” is also the medicine or dosing 

day, for if quinine is not promptly and sufficiently 
( 201 ) 


202 


PEN PICTURES. 


introduced so as to compel the bacteria to get out 
of the blood or loosen their hold on various inner 
membranes, then there is certain to come on the 
third day another victory for the chills, with higher 
fever, greater freezings, and all the accompanying 
chatterings, shiverings and shakings, that belong 
to the malady. 

In some way, as a lad of fifteen, we had received 
the malaria, and was brought down full length and 
helpless upon the bed. We had frozen, burned 
up, shook, and trembled until we were perfectly 
worn out. We were so tired of the shaking that 
we would not have protested a second if some one 
would have suggested laying a cotton bale on us 
instead of a blanket. We had discovered “per- 
petual motion,” and perfectly satisfied, not to say 
sick of the discovery, were ready to part with the 
secret for anything or nothing. It was wearing 
us out, who had found it, even as it had broken 
others down who were seeking it. It was too won- 
derful for us. We wanted no more of it. 

After this came the “ second day,” in which 
the physical system rested and gathered itself for 
another earthquake to begin on schedule time the 
next morning with premonitory gapings, stretch- 
ings, sighings and tossings on the bed. 


BITTER PILLS. 


203 


Pale, weak, dispirited, we looked forth on the 
world from the depths of a pillow and discovered 
a form standing by the bedside. We studied the 
phenomenon dreamily and observed that the size 
was medium, color, black, and sex, female. 

We also noticed a glass of water to be in one 
hand and a shallow, red box in the other, filled 
with round white things the size of a pea, and 
standing knee-deep in a yellowish powder. These 
spheres were pills, and bitter pills at that. They 
were quinine pills. 

We shuddered at the sight. Even to this day 
we have shiverings at the recollection, and feel a 
peculiar knot or rising up in the throat, attended 
with unmistakable symptoms of nausea. 

By and by a voice proceeded from the form : 

“ Here’s yer pills.” 

I lay and wondered at such a speech. The girl 
spoke as if I did not know the pills were there ; 
just as if they had not rolled up like great 
dark bodies of the most solid, opaque matter, 
eclipsing happiness and filling all life with shadow 
and misery. 

Then, to think of her saying they were “ my 
pills,” as though they were my peculiar property, 
or I wanted any such possession ! 


2°4 


PEN PICTURES. 


Naturally, therefore, no sign was given from 
the pillow or bedclothes that any such absurd 
speech had been heard. A perfect abstraction was 
counterfeited. 

So the voice sounded again upon the air, solemn 
and sepulchral as though coming from the cata- 
combs. 

“Is yer gwine ter take dese pills? ” 

Our abstraction grew deeper. The knot in the 
throat became larger. Nausea developed. Gen- 
eral wretchedness increased. 

Again the voice : 

“ Is yer gwine ter take dese pills, or mus’ I call 
yer Ma?” 

At these words, and especially the last, I arose 
immediately and sat up in bed. 

“ Where are the pills? ” I asked, as though sud- 
denly interested and conscious for the first time of 
their proximity. 

“ Here dey is,” replied the sphinx by my side, 
thrusting the pills right under my nose. 

“ Ugh ! ” I exclaimed, and shuddering, hid my 
face, fell back flat on the bed and begged for just 
one minute’s respite by the clock. 

It was granted, and the dark hand was with- 
drawn. 


BITTER PILLS. 


205 


Then came a musing fit, which lasted five min- 
utes ; then a fixed gazing out of the window, and 
more deep thought and abstraction. 

The hand of the form by the bedside com- 
menced moving towards me again ; the voice 
began : 

“Is yer gwine ter take — ” 

“ Please remove,” I interrupted, “the two I 
am to take from the rest. Don't bring an army 
against me, but kill me by platoons .' 1 All this in 
bitter irony. 

Thirty seconds were gained by this piece of 
strategy. But at the end of that time, there was the 
black hand and that dreadful voice again, and there 
was the glass of water and the pills, which seemed 
by this time to have the circumference of cart 
wheels, while the yellow powder in which they 
stood, looking like dust, favored the idea. 

And now we became suddenly and greatly in- 
terested in other things. What was that noise out- 
side the window? Who was that talking in the 
other room? Where was my hat? Had my brother 
gone to school? Had my horse, Lightfoot, been 
fed? 

The answers were only too quickly given. 
There was no one outside the window. It was my 


20 6 


PEN PICTURES. 


mother in the other room. My brother had gone to 
school. The horse had been fed, and would I take 
the pills or must she call my — 

“ Where is the water?’’ 

“ Here it is.” 

“ Have you got a piece of ham?” 

“ Yes.” 

‘ ‘ Got some jelly?” 

“Yes.” 

“Is the foot tub there?” 

Yes, everything is there, and all things are 
ready indeed, except the boy. 

Then came a glance at the pills, and then a hur- 
ried looking away. They seemed to be growing 
larger all the while. 

But what need to dwell on the long hour spent 
in advancing towards and retreating from those 
globes of trouble, the arousing and sinking back, 
the clenching and the unclenching of the teeth, the 
taking up one of the pills in the hand as if weighing 
it, and then — laying it back in the box, while the 
body shuddered and the bowed head shook nega- 
tively from side to side as much as to say, it can 
not be done ! 

What need to dwell on the periodic, oracular 
like utterance by my side from the black servant. 


BITTER PILLS. 20? 

“ Here’s yer pills. Is you gwine ter take yer 
pills?” 

How shall I describe the arrangements for bat- 
tle and the last struggle ? The piece of ham is be- 
fore me, the spoon of jelly in reach, a lump of sugar 
and slice of apple hard by. Beyond, there are the 
towel and foot tub. 

What need to say that the first pill was bitten in 
two ; that another all covered with jelly came out of 
the sweet encircling, the preserves going down all 
right and the pill remaining in the mouth all wrong. 

At last, after being exhorted, entreated, com- 
manded, threatened, I, with one great gulp, swal- 
lowed two. One of the couple remained clinging 
with its hands to the side of the throat beyond the 
reach of the finger. As for the other, its locality 
farther down was as well known as any piece of 
furniture in the room. Are not all these things 
written in the chronicles of the family ? 

Well, the pills, with a dozen others, were swal- 
lowed in due time, and their health-restoring prop- 
erty realized. The bitter became sweet. Sickness 
gave way to better conditions, and I arose from the 
bed, and live today because of the aforesaid bitter 
medicine. 

* * * * 


208 


PEN PICTURES. 


Oh the bitter pills of this life ! Who has not 
had to take them? There are diseases of the soul 
as well as of the body. There is such a thing as 
unhealthfulness of the spirit. The conscience 
and heart can get wrong. The character may 
be hurt. 

At such a time, so far as religious usefulness is 
concerned, the man is profitless. He becomes one of 
the many invalids in the church. The sparkle has 
gone from the eye, the light from the face and the 
spring from the step. Virtually he is in bed ; there 
can be no question about that. 

The reader will remember that right then and 
there certain bitter pills were offered him. They 
were just as real and unavoidable as though a dark 
form stood by and with relentless hand pressed 
them to the lips. 

Let us look at the box and see the names of these 
drugs, and study the character of the medicine. 
Apologies, that a Christian law and spirit demand, 
should be made ; acts of restitution and reparation 
for deeds and words that have been hurtful to 
others ; or it is a private confession of a secret 
wrong ; or a public acknowledgment of an open 
misdeed ; or it is a humiliating position under God’s 
providence that has to be accepted ; or some 


BITTER PILLS* 


209 


defeat or failure in a life* work which has to be 
endured. 

The reader knows the pills well. How strange 
it is that men fail to realize the benefit of their bitter 
qualities, upon the pride-engorged and sin-sick 
heart. 

Can the reader ever forget how he coquetted, 
so to speak, with those pills ; how he looked, and 
refused to look again ; how he hid his face, shud- 
dered, sickened, and said he could never take them 
— that it was impossible ? ’ ’ 

We get a little closer and talk in the second 
person, singular number. 

Do you remember, my reader, that all this 
while there seemed to be within you or near you a 
dark, sorrowful Presence in whose eyes shone the 
light of calm judgment and who kept whis- 
pering: 

“ This is your medicine — will you take it? ” 

Do you remember how long you refused to hear 
that voice ; how you counterfeited abstraction with 
your conscience ? How you tried to hecome ab- 
sorbed in other matters, and how you thought and 
asked, and lived a thousand foolish things? How 
you tried to become interested in other and outside 
affairs, and how you utterly failed because of that 


210 


PEN PICTURES. 


immovable hand which still presented the bitter, 
nauseous potion of an unmistakable duty ? 

You noticed that you got no better. The con- 
viction grew that you had to take the pills to be 
well with man and God. 

Then came the idea of dividing the pill, then 
the plan of making it more palatable by coating it 
with jelly ; or to speak literally, you made efforts 
to obtain concession from the other side. Or the 
jelly happened to be a half confession, or a mis- 
leading confession. 

It was all in vain. The hand was never with- 
drawn. The voice continued to say : 

“ There are your pills. Will you take them?” 

You even insisted after all this that you were 
not sick, that there was nothing in the world the 
matter with you. But the symptoms of disease 
were unmistakable — a coated tongue, feeble pulse, 
weak action of the heart, a listless, heavy feeling, 
loss of appetite, shooting pains, nervous fears and 
apprehensions by day and bad dreams at night. 
Yes, there was no doubt about it, you were sick. 

The day came — can you ever forget it — when you 
made up your mind to do the just, right, and Christ- 
like thing. You heard the call of duty and answered, 
“Here am I.” You took up your cross. You 


BITTER PILLS. 


2 1 1 


squared life and heart for some peculiar burden. You 
accepted your providential situation. You made con- 
fession and reparation. In a word you took the pills. 

In other days you had cut one pill in two. A 
second was chewed instead of swallowed. A third 
slipped out of some kind of jelly casing and caused 
much gagging. Still another stuck in the throat. 

But this time you took the pills in your hand, 
put them squarely in your mouth, threw your head 
back like a man, fixed your eyes upon the heavens, 
and taking a big gulp of the water of life — down 
they went ! 

Now, what? Behold an instantaneous delicious 
sense of spiritual health rushed into you. Moral 
disease fled, and strength and gladness entered. 
You took up your bed, so to speak, and walked. 
You have been walking ever since. Light is in 
the eye, joy in the soul, and power in the life. 
You have left the hospital and resumed business 
at the old stand. But it looks like a new stand, 
and it certainly seems to be larger. The sign 
appears to have been repainted, and the owner 
looks like he has been rejuvenated, if not re-cre- 
ated. And besides all this there is evidence of a 
greater rush of* religious activity and spiritual 
achievement there, than was ever known before. 

Anyhow, the sick man is well. 


XIX. 


D. D. 

“pOME hither, my son, and while we rest under 
^this pine, which seems to be whispering the 
secrets of the forest behind us to the murmuring, 
inquiring ocean yonder, that leans far over the 
strand to hear, then retires as if meditating upon 
what it has heard, then rushes forward again with 
another moan-like question ; and while the eye takes 
in the gleaming white lighthouse far up the coast, 
and yonder distant, motionless sail, and the smoke 
trail of the passing steamer still farther away 
towards the horizon, let me ruminate aloud to thee. 

“This is the month of June. The season of 
college commencements is over. Essays, able and 
scholarly, and bound with pink and blue ribbon, 
have been read by sapient youths and able girls of 
sixteen. Questions, problems and mysteries of all 
kinds in the realms of art and science, poetry and 
philosophy, morals and religion, have been met, 
mentally grappled with, solved, cleared up and made 
generally luminous in the aforesaid essays. The 
thing is settled now for the world, and for that mat- 
1212 ) 


D. D. 


213 


ter, so is the essay. It may be found after this pres- 
ent month, well settled in the bottom of an old 
trunk, in some far-away country home, without 
hope of resurrection, 

“Commencement, my son, is over. The speaker 
invited from a distance has returned to the bosom 
of his admiring family, who have already read, in 
the telegraphic column of the newspaper which he 
forwarded, that his- sermon, or address, was able, 
erudite, polished and eloquent. (The man send- 
ing the report or dispatch not having heard it.) And 
now the returned speaker bears about with him for 
several days a look of chastened triumph ; but after 
that period, and after two or three dozen adroit al- 
lusions to the marked attention of his audience, the 
sudden burst of applause, etc., etc., the said speaker 
quietly subsides into the jog trot experience and 
ordinary appearance of a commonplace, everyday 
life that is unrelieved by platform introductions; 
hand-clappings, assumed mannerisms, studied 
deportment, dignified bearing, public honors, elab- 
orate dinings, and a general kind of happification. 

“Yes, commencement is over! The red hot 
college brand, D. D., has been flourished, applied 
vigorously, and the smell of scorched ministerial 
flesh is in the air.” 


214 


PEN PICTURES. 


“ Father, what is D. D. ?” 

“ What is D. D. ? I came near saying it was not 
much ; but on reflection I would say it amounts to 
nothing. Still to speak more intelligibly, it does 
not stand for ‘ Doubly Dead,’ as some rashly sup- 
pose, or ‘ Dry as Dust,’ as others have maliciously 
suggested. It is one of the many remarkable com- 
binations of the alphabet whereby some individuals 
are made glad, others sad, still others mad, while 
a chartered institution of education is relieved of a 
heavy burden.” 

“ I hardly understand you, father.” 

“ It is not difficult to comprehend, my son. At 
one time it was thought that the great and only 
function of the alphabet was its service as a medium 
of communication between man and his fellow. 
This was a very hasty and incorrect conclusion. 
As men have grown wiser, discoveries have in- 
creased and inventions of all kinds blessed the 
earth. Among them, and prominent at that, is the 
sublime art of using the alphabet, and especially 
parts of the alphabet, not to spell, but to throw 
a spell ; not to reveal, but to hide a meaning ; not 
to add to mental burdens, but to deliver from bur- 
dens. For instance, a body of gentlemen, repre- 
senting a certain educational institution that is weak 


D. D. 


2I 5 


in its knees from a number of causes, can by a wise 
use of one or more letters of the alphabet not only 
help a friend, make a friend, and advertise a 
business, but can also pay a debt, all to the com- 
fort and relief of the institution itself.” 

“ But how, father?” 

“The whole thing is done by taking two or 
three letters, arranging them in a certain form, and 
applying them to the name, and you might say, to 
the person of some individual, who thereafter be- 
comes the lifelong friend, defender and advertiser 
of the aforesaid institution. This curious disposal 
of letters and their application constitutes a college 
brand. 

“ The only arrangement difficult for most of 
these colleges to make is the following, L. S. D., 
which is supposed to stand for pounds, shillings 
and pence, or their equivalents. Failing at this 
point, they make up for it with other combinations. 
But even here it requires much skill and a nice 
judgment. It would never do to trust to a chance 
disposal of letters, for some exceedingly painful 
pictures and images could be mentally produced by 
two or three letters infelicitously connected. 

“ We do not dwell here, but pass on with the 
statement that in a certain University in England 


2l6 


PEN PICTURES. 


it had been the custom to require an essay from 
each minister who was to be honored with the title 
of D. D. But another law was passed by the fac- 
ulty, demanding two essays, whereupon the col- 
lege poet and wit became inspired and gave forth 
the following affecting lines to the town paper, 
which as promptly published them : 

“The title D. D. 

’Tis proposed to convey, 

To an A double S 
For a double S A.” 

“Chance arrangements of letters as suggested 
above would never do. No matter how the public 
might believe that the preacher had earned and 
deserved the title, yet the feelings of the man him- 
self should be considered. 

“ Suppose that a college in a fit of absence of 
mind should settle on the letters D. H., as we once 
saw a hotel clerk do, attaching these very two 
characters to the name of a preacher who had 
departed without paying his bill. What, then ? 

“We felt that day, as we saw that peculiar 
suffix garnishing the clerical name, like saying to 
the clerk and owner : 

“ Sirs, you do this gentleman great wrong ; you 
have mistaken a letter . He is not a D . H . , but a D . D . 


D. D. 


217 


“ But no, it seemed that they knew him better 
than I did, and that hotels had titles, degrees and 
brands as well as colleges, and they reserved the 
right to apply certain letters to names as do certain 
universities. Theirs were P’d and D. H. But all 
this is a digresssion. 

“ The colleges do not stop with one brand, they 
have many. They possess, we may say, a number 
of kaleidoscopic combinations, which never fail to 
please. 

‘ ‘ It is true that some of their arrangements pos- 
sess a double meaning or significance, according to 
the faith or unbelief of the public. For instance, 
M. D. stands for Doctor of Medicine, but some 
insist it is the old word, “ Murder,” with the four 
smallest letters left out. B. A. is regarded by col- 
lege circles to mean Bachelor of Arts, and by many 
of the outside world as representing great know- 
ledge and acquirements, but others gravely affirm 
that it is a part of the exclamation BAH !, the last 
letter having been purposely left out. 

“ So thoughtful, observant men asseverate that 
S. T. D., stands for ‘Stalled !’ and Ph. D., is an 
agreeable, but cunning way of altering the word 
‘ Phooled I ’ 

“ The degree LL. D. was originally L. S. D., 


2l8 


PEN PICTURES. 


(pounds, shillings and pence), but the middle let- 
ter was changed from S. to L. to prevent any re- 
flection upon the profession. 

“ Nor is this all, my son. As men become great, 
or college debts and obligations greater, it does not 
matter which, these and still other titles will be 
added in such number that it will become a ques- 
tion as to what part of the alphabet will be left to 
us common mortals ; and further still, what visit- 
ing card or envelope will ever be able to contain, 
in a sense, the individual’s greatness. 

“For instance, several years ago I received a 
letter from a preacher, and in it was one of his 
cards. I repeat it just as it was written, or rather 
printed, only changing the real name to the ficti- 
tious one of Brown, the changed name, by the 
the way, possessing the exact number of letters 
that were in the real one. Here it is : 

“W. Brown, M. D., D. D., LL. D. 

“At a glance the eye takes in the fact that the 
added letters outnumber the original name by one 
already, and still the man was alive and increasing 
in fame. 

“ The same year we had another visiting card 
sent us by a ministerial friend, which bore the fol- 
lowing legend, the family name only changed, 


D. D. 219 

though having the same number of letters. The 
rest is exactly copied from the card : 

“W. H. Long, A. B., M. A., Ph. D., D. C. L., 
LL. D. 

“ Now, it is impossible to contemplate these 
two addresses without being peculiarly affected. 
One emotion excited is that of sympathy and pity 
for a man who has to sign such a longitudinal 
name. Second, a sensation of alarm is aroused 
as we are made plainly to see that with these in- 
creasing signs of greatness no man can hold his 
patronymic very long on his visiting cards. Just a 
glance at the addresses of Brown arid Long will 
reveal the approaching peril. Already close to the 
lefthand border, it is evident that with two or three 
more degrees the family name, already retiring in 
the background, will finally be pushed entirely off 
the envelope or enamelled pasteboard, and noth- 
ing be left but a riotous, triumphant portion of the 
alphabet, spelling nothing, and for that matter, 
meaning nothing. 

“ A third feature about the matter which awak- 
ens thought and concern in the observant mind is 
the obvious injustice done the family name by this 
preponderance of letters on one side of the pat- 
ronymic, while the other is severely neglected, 


220 


PEN PICTURES. 


as for instance in one of the addresses already 
given : 

“W. H. Long, A. B.,M. A., Ph. D., D.C. L., 
LL. D. 

“ Evidently Mr. Long is flying with one wing 
and should have another. There should be sym- 
metry in names and visiting cards, as well as in the 
shape of birds and form of houses. A building 
with a wing attachment on one side must have an- 
other to correspond on the opposite quarter, or the 
eye, taste and judgment of observers will be of- 
fended. 

“ Realizing this, men have gone to work on the 
lefthand side of the name and added various kinds 
of balance weights. Not allowed to use letters 
alone, colleges having a monopoly upon them, 
they took whole words, as for instance, His Maj- 
esty, His Gracious Majesty, His Highness, His 
Royal Highness, His Excellency, the Honorable, 
etc., etc., etc. 

‘ ‘ The church, not to be outdone, rushes into this 
struggle to redeem and save the family name, or 
more truly to prize or lift up the neglected or sinking 
end of it to a proper level with the righthand attach- 
ments, and so we have the titles Reverend, Right 
Reverend, Most Reverend, His Grace, His Holi- 


D. D. 


221 


ness, etc. etc. Then comes a long array of Bish- 
ops, Elders, Deacons, Arch Bishops, Arch Dea- 
cons, Rectors, Curates, Canons, Vicars, Deans, 
and others too numerous to mention. 

4 4 The result is that at last the prefixes are equal 
in number to the suffixes, and the family name of 
Brown, Long and others can be not only redeemed, 
but placed in right relation to all the various bor- 
ders of card or envelopes by being sandwiched be- 
tween letters on one side and words on the other. 
To illustrate, a certain address I once saw, read as 
follows : 

“The Right Reverend Thomas Green, D. D., 
Ph. D., LL. D. 

44 Here we see the good old name of Green is 
properly balanced. If anything, the prefixes, or 
lefthanders, have the advantage over the suffixes, 
or right-handers, when it comes to an actual enu- 
meration of letters. 

44 The introduction of such a favored gentleman 
in a large dining-room, or at a public reception, 
would be high sounding, euphonious and ornate to 
the highest degree , — 4 Ladies and gentlemen, allow 
me to present to you, His Grace, the Right Rev- 
erend Thomas Green, Bishop of Soandso, A. M., 
D. D., Ph. D. and LL. D.* 


222 


PEN PICTURES. 


“ Sometimes I have thought, as I have seen the 
colleges capturing the alphabet by sections, that it 
would be a good plan for the people to rise en masse 
and throw the tea overboard, so to speak, or to 
pass a Declaration of Independence and every man 
wear the whole alphabet like a kind of necklace 
about his name as follows : 

“abcdefghijkl mjohn Smith n o p q r s 
t u v w x y z. 

“ Perhaps in this way, by standing up for our 
rights, we might stop in a measure this robbery 
and ignoringof our claims upon the alphabet, which 
belongs to us all.” 

“But, father, what has all this to do with 
D. D?” 

“Everything, my son. D. D. is one of the 
favorite college brands, and very freely and liber- 
ally it is applied. Sometimes it is given medici- 
nally, for it has been known to build up a depleted 
ministerial system . Cartright, the pioneer preacher, 
however, rejected it on that ground, saying that 
he thanked God his divinity did not need doctor- 
ing. 

“Sometimes it is given gratefully, in recogni- 
tion of past favors or anticipation of some benefit 
to be received from the branded.” 


D. D. 


223 


“ Why, father, you surprise me. I thought a 
person who received this degree had to possess 
great attainments in theology, with knowledge in 
science and general literature, that he had to un- 
derstand Greek and Hebrew, to be a mighty ex- 
pounder of God’s Word, and a man indeed great 
in head, heart, deed and life?” 

“Well, that might have been the case, once, 
but times have changed, my son, and the world is 
getting a new theology, or truer still, trying to 
get along without any at all. And then the 
preachers are numerous, and some are ambitious, 
and some clamorous, and above all, colleges are 
plentiful, especially small colleges, and this latter 
class has no idea of possessing prerogratives and 
not exercising them, of owning a brand and not 
using it.” 

“Do all the colleges bestow these titles with 
equal freeness?” 

“Oh no, The small surpass the great in this 
regard. In England the title D. D. is rarely given, 
and means considerable. In this country our 
great universities bestow it more frequently than is 
done across the ocean, but still with some caution. 
It is the small college which wearies not in this 
work and that seems possessed with the idea that 


224 PEN PICTURES. 

this is its mission and purpose, to make D. D’s.” 

“I should think that preachers would prefer the 
title from a large and old institute of learning.’ ’ 

“They do, and so many of them are kept in 
terror, dodging the honors of one of these smaller 
places. But it is of no avail. The small college 
watches the papers and pulpits, and as soon as a 
man emerges above the line of mediocrity, one of 
these college Boards, with their President at the 
head, rush forth upon the rising individual with 
the college brand all red hot with resolutions, and 
applying it to him vigorously, mark him forever as 
their own.” 

“ I judge, father, that some thus served feel 
annoyed.” 

“ Annoyed ! That is not the word. Some fairly 
sicken, and others inwardly rage in their mortifi- 
cation. I was told of a certain individual, that he 
had lived and striven for a great university marking 
title, and felt the day was drawing near for that 
consummation, as his articles and discourses began 
to attract public attention. But one summer, hav- 
ing delivered an able address at the Commence- 
ment of a small country college, the Board in- 
stantly called a meeting, and with great enthusiasm 
passed a vote, heated the irons, and rushed with 


D. D. 


225 


one accord upon the man and branded him with 
their brand. He gave a great public outcry ! It 
was so unexpected So painful ! Some report that 
in his acknowledgment of the Liliputian honor 
he said, ‘he would rather have received this title 
from the hands of Pine Brush College, founded 
here in Black Jack Neighborhood, than to have 
had it come from the largest and oldest University 
in the world,’ etc., etc. 

“My informant also told me that as the branded 
man talked on, he actually foamed at the mouth. 

“But the little colleges do not stop to consider 
the pain they inflict. They feel it is their mission 
and privilege, and so in the month of June, the 
branding season, they dash into the thickest' of the 
fight, and soon the dull thud of the brand is heard, 
the scream of the victim arises, the acknowledg- 
ments flow like blood or ascend like wails, accor- 
ding to the fancy of the looker on. The battle cry 
is, brand somebody if you can, but before you 
brand nobody, be sure to brand anybody.” 

“But at this rate, father, there will soon be no 
preachers left without the title.” 

“Yes, that is true. We are rapidly approaching 
that period when all will have it.” 

“Well, if that be so, what will the colleges do 


226 PEN PICTURES. 

in their distribution of these prizes, or I should 
more respectfully say honors?” 

“They can give other titles like Ph.D. and S. 
T. D., and after that invent new ones.” 

“But, then, father, there must even be an end of 
this. And what is more the very commonness and 
abundance of these degrees will cause their depre- 
ciation, and utter inability to impress the public 
mind.” 

‘ ‘ Exactly so , my son . And doubtless you think by 
this turn of the question, this presentation of the 
inevitable, that you have placed the colleges and 
myself in a quandary. Not at all. With pro- 
phetic gaze I see the deliverance, the way of 
escape from this great difficulty. For would it 
not be a difficulty and trouble indeed for a 
college to lose its branding irons ? A college 
unable to confer degrees or titles would be like a 
physician unable to get hold of physic or a man 
powerless to reach his purse. Indeed, more, 
Othello’s occupation would be gone. 

“ But mark you, this is the way of escape and 
deliverance. When all that are preachers are 
D. D.’s; when prominent personages are loaded 
with titles, as the hull of a vessel is covered with 
barnacles, then the College Brand will be given 


D. D. 


227 


up for a different looking instrument altogether, 
— something not of a stamping, but extracting 
power, not a Brand, but a huge pair of Forceps. 

“So it shall be that when this or that minister 
comes up to a College Commencement with the 
ache and throbbing pain of a D. D. upon him, and 
suffering from the decayed honor of other titles, 
and he shall by sermon or address, or by scholarly 
attainment or noble performance cover himself 
with glory, the faculty and trustees shall consider 
his case, diagnose his moral worth and intellec- 
tual excellence, and if pleased, shall then and there 
solemnly bring out the Forceps of the College 
and with a tremendous jerk forever pull out the 
dead and hollow D. D. from his name. After 
that, if he is a man of real merit, and they would 
do him even greater honor, they will proceed to 
extract the decayed Ph. D and S. T. D. with their 
twisted roots, until finally the table is fairly cov- 
ered with ecclesiastical teeth. 

“Oh the relief to the sufferer ! With groanings 
these grinders and incisors were drawn out, for 
they had gone deep into the ministerial nature and 
curved around the hidden man, but they were re- 
moved at last, and now with tears of joy the 
relieved man thanks the Board of Professors for 


228 


PEN PICTURES. 


their able extraction of roots, and gladly pays any 
charge the Faculty and Trustees may be pleased 
to make. 

“Verily it shall come to pass in those days, and 
they are nigh at hand, when it will be to a man’s 
honor that he is without a title, and has no 
plume-like, or tail-like appendage to his name.” 


XX. 


A PICTURE GALLERY. 

T ET artists and travelers boast as they will about 
^ Halls of modern Art and Galleries of ancient 
paintings, of the Old School and the New School, 
of the Vandykes and the Rembrants, of the collec- 
tions of London, Paris, Rome and Florence, yet it 
remains a fact that living men and women hold us 
with a stronger spell and a more lasting power than 
the creations of brush, canvas and colors can possi- 
bly exercise. 

It is a rare thing for a person to visit a work of 
art many days and pore over it for hours at each 
going. The rule is that one look is sufficient for the 
greater number of paintings, the study of one hour 
exhausts others, and few can stand repeated trips. 
Whatever may be the depth of the finest subject 
on canvas, yet this fact remains that in itself, it 
is motionless and doomed to changelessness. It is 
what the artist made and left. The fancy may 
invest it with hidden charms, and yet there are the 
same colors, the old, fixed stare and the unaltering 
attitude. 


( 229 ) 


230 


PEN PICTURES. 


Besides all this, some of us are unable to visit 
these Museums and Halls of Art, and few are able 
to return after a first call. 

It is fortunate for us that we have the Life Gal- 
lery all around us. On the cars, on the street, at 
home, in our constant contact with people in the 
paths of business and pleasure, we see full-length, 
life-size portraits that surpass in their effect, 
in many respects, the pictures of the Louvre 
and the Vatican. Our paintings have stepped 
down and out of all kinds of frames and set- 
tings. No canvas or cloth of any character 
can hold them. They furnish their own color and 
groupings. We do not have to walk down an 
endless aisle to see them, but they stream in a pro- 
cession by us. They have motion. They have a 
delightful changeability that the ordinary portrait 
fails to possess. 

So we repeat, fond as we are of works of Art, 
we prefer Nature. We would rather look upon 
the Gallery of Life, if choice had to be made, than 
to be confined to a building which is only filled 
after all with imitations and representations of life. 

Many of the individuals we have met in the 
past, and many of the life scenes beheld, have 
become themselves paintings, and hung up in the 


A PICTURE GALLERY. 


231 


halls of memory, make a wonderful Picture Gal- 
lery. Some of us feel very rich in these posses- 
sions, and there are days when we lock ourselves in 
these Halls of the Mind and walk silently up and 
down the aisles of Recollection and gaze upon 
these personages and happenings of the Past. 
Sometimes the children or our friends catch us 
smiling or sighing as we stand meditatively with 
hands folded behind us, looking at one of these old 
time portraits. They ask us why we laughed, or why 
the tears fell upon the cheek, and we hastily brush 
away the drops and say, “Oh, it was nothing.” 

On certain days when the little ones beg us, or 
our friends have ingratiated themselves to an 
unusual degree, we take the key and show them 
a few of these mental treasures. Some we do not 
care to let any one look at, such are their precious- 
ness and sacredness. When we have attempted to 
go into this private room, people have wondered 
why the eyes have overflowed when standing before 
and talking about one of these life pictures. But 
we tell them that the dust we brushed off the frame 
and canvas got into our eyes and some into the 
throat, producing a choking sound which made our 
visitors look very hard at us. But it was simpty 
the dust. 


232 


PEN PICTURES. 


These things have made us avoid taking visitors 
down what we call the Hidden Gallery, but there 
are other halls and corridors that are well supplied, 
and some days we allow the public to come in and 
take a stroll. 

We have opened the door this morning to ex- 
hibit a few pictures in one of the outer passages. 
Here is one that I call, 

“ SORROW AND POVERTY.” 

It was_ drawn, or rather beheld, at a little rail- 
road station in Kentucky. A plain-looking woman 
got off the train and was met by a plain-looking 
man. They were both evidently in middle life and 
in humble circumstances. They appeared to have 
had a hard time in this world. But the thing that 
touched me most was their possession of some un- 
known, common sorrow ; for immediately after 
meeting they walked off side by side with the 
tears rolling down their faces. The man with a 
coarse bandana handkerchief kept wiping his eyes, 
while the woman’s hand was busy in a like employ- 
ment. What was it? Perhaps she had come from 
the deathbed of a loved one dear to both. Perhaps 
she had been summoned to a sick bed here, and 
had arrived too late, and had been so informed. 


A PICTURE GALLERY. 


233 


I can not tell. But as they walked off, unnoticed 
by the crowd, two plain, simple people plunged in 
a common grief, the scene appealed most power- 
fully to the heart. The unstudied grief, the poverty 
of the couple, their isolation from everybody, their 
silent turning away into an empty-looking world 
with their burden, made the living picture all the 
more heart moving. They knew it not, but tender 
sympathy and prayer went up in their behalf from 
at least one heart that morning on the train. 

The next picture I have named, 

“ a child’s sorrow.” 

At a small station in Texas I heard two children 
- crying bitterly outside. One especially was loudly 
lamenting and saying something I could not un- 
derstand. Looking out of the window, I saw a 
girl of twelve wrapping her arms around another 
one of ten and trying to pull her from the grasp 
of a man who was drawing her toward the train. 
Then came the thrilling, pleading, eye-filling 
words : 

“ O don’t take my sister. O my little sister, I 
can’t let you go. O please don’t take her. Don’t 
take my little sister.” 

Such was the strength that the agony, even 


234 PEN PreTURESo 

frenzy, of the girl gave her, that the man found 
himself unable to separate them, while the con- 
ductor had already cried out, “All aboard.” 

Here a second man sprang forward and both 
managed to separate the two weeping girls, and 
thrust the younger up the steps into the car. No 
one who witnessed the scene will ever forget the 
wail of grief and gesture of despair of the older 
child when she realized her helplessness and saw 
her sister borne away. I heard her cry, “O my 
God — my poor little sister ! ’ ’ — and the roll of the 
train drowned the rest. 

As I gathered the history afterwards, it was a 
parting compelled by poverty. A poor woman 
with five or six children found herself unable to 
take care of them all, and one of the youngest was 
given to a gentleman in Alabama to adopt, and he 
had thus taken her away. 

The third I call, 

“the piney woods.” 

The scene is that of a great shadowy forest 
made up entirely of those lofty-plumed, sad-voiced 
trees, belonging to the family of palms and called 
the pines. The great trunks shoot up like pillars 
to hold a ceiling or canopy of interlocked boughs, 


A PICTURE GALLERY. 


235 


so thick as to fill the woods even at midday with 
solemn shadows. Long aisles carpeted thickly 
with yellow needles, and sprinkled with burrs, 
open in every direction and tempt the musing wan- 
derer to lengthy rambles. 

But the ceiling overhead is also a marvel- 
. ous musical instrument. It is Nature’s greatest 
aeolian harp. The sharp, green needles furnish 
all the notes needed, even to the deepest minor 
chords. Gradually a zephyr comes out of the 
South, and a far away, weird sound is heard, 
full of melody, like spirit voices high up in 
the air. We glance upward and see the plumed 
heads gently stirring and bending, while shaking 
down this unwritten music upon the soul. It 
dies away. And then suddenly it rises again 
with a profounder sigh, a more sorrowful wail, 
under the spell of which memories are aroused, 
long vanished forms and faces return, and an un- 
utterable yearning for something and somebody 
takes possession of the spirit, so that the eyes fill 
and overflow, and the heart feels as if it would cer- 
tainly break. 

Beautiful, melancholy grove of the South I 
Many a time in early life have we strolled, book 
or gun in hand, through its shadowy aisles, drink- 


236 


PEN PICTURES. 


ing in its sweet, resinous breath, or stretched on its 
clean, brown sward, listened to the plaintive music 
in the tree tops. Often at the hour of sunset or twi- 
light we have heard from afar the lonely call of 
the whippoorwill in its fragrant depths, and later 
still from the gallery or bedroom window saw the 
moon rise over the dark hills and crown the majes- 
tic looking woods with a coronet ol liquid silver. 

The sight of the heather of Scotland always 
deeply affected Walter Scott. So the writer can 
never see, smell or hear the pines without the eyes 
becoming misty and the heart getting home-sick 
for the Southland. 

The fourth picture we glance at I call, 

“THE ORGAN GRINDER.” 

There is no other city just like New Orleans, 
and because of this uniqueness comes its great 
charm. The narrow streets, old French and 
Spanish houses, beautiful gardens, tropical looking 
flowers, delightful gulf breezes, and the majestic 
river flowing by its crescent-shaped side, are some 
of the features of the place that make it to be en- 
duringly remembered. 

One of the characteristics of the metropolis is 
the ubiquitous presence of the organ grinder. He 


A PICTURE GALLERY. 


237 


visits, of course, the noisy business thoroughfares, 
but abounds most in the residence portion of the 
city. Yonder you see him in the dim perspective 
of the street with revolving arm, while a few chil- 
dren and a servant maid constitute his audience. 
Here you behold him again, bent almost double 
under his heavy musical load, approaching the cor- 
ner where as he plays he can watch four avenues for 
beckoning hands. Again we are admonished of his 
presence as we hear the strains of the organ wafted 
over the shrubbery and tree tops from a neighboring 
street. It is an afternoon hour ; the gentlemen are 
down town ; the ladies with book or light sewing 
sit in hall or swing in hammock ; the soft sea breeze 
is just felt through the latticed gallery ; the faint 
distant whir of the street car barely penetrates the 
quiet side streets, lined with typical Southern 
homes, when suddenly through the sunny, slum- 
berous air the strains of a distant organ are heard. 
It may be a classic or the slap-dash melody of the 
day — it may be Annie Laurie, or the more modern 
Annie Rooney ; or it is Marguerite, or IlTrovatore, 
or the strains of 4 4 Ah , I Have Sighed to Rest Me ’ ’ 
are borne faintly and sweetly to the listening ear. 
Whatever it is, somehow we listen ; sensibilities 
are stirred, memories revived, and we feel sorry 


238 


PEN PICTURES. 


when the piece is over and the organ grinder gone. 
A few minutes afterward we hear him again a block 
further off ; a little later the sound is still more 
faintly heard two squares distant, and so the melody, 
like blessings of life, finally dies away altogether. 

The fifth is, 

“A RIVER SCENE.” 

When I was a boy I stood one afternoon on the 
bank of the Alabama River and looked at a steamer 
going down the stream toward the city of Mobile. 
The calliope on the upper deck was playing Lo- 
rena. As the strains of that pathetic song of the 
war died, or we might say, faded away in the 
distance, together with the lessening form of the 
steamer, I was left spellbound upon the bank. 
The very ripples of the river seemed as they broke 
upon the shore at my feet to bring with them 
fragments of the touching melody that had just 
ceased reverberating, and out of the distance 
seemed to come the words of the song : 

“A hundred months ’twas flowery May, 

When up the hilly slope we’d climb, 

To watch the dying of the day 
And hear the distant church bells chime.” 

We remember at the time, that the Confederacy 


A PICTURE GALLERY. 


239 


was going to pieces, Federal forces were raiding 
the land, and a melancholy not only brooded upon 
the people, but seemed to fill the very atmosphere. 
Nevertheless there was something in the scene in 
itself that left a lifelong impression upon the 
writer. It has been a long time since that after- 
noon, but the swelling of the heart, the indefinable 
longings produced by the scene and hour have 
never been forgotten. 

Some would say, what is there in that simple 
circumstance to make a lasting picture ; a distant 
bend in the river, a vanishing steamer, the strains 
of a love song dying away in faint and still fainter 
echoes along the shore, and the river breaking in 
a mournful, lapping sound at the feet of a boy? 

We reply : some things may never be explained 
or described — they can only be felt. 

The sixth and last is, 

“A CAMP GROUND NIGHT SCENE.” 

It was a summer night at the Sea Shore Camp 
Ground near Biloxi in the “Seventies.” From 
the tabernacle could be seen the Gulf of Mexico, 
or more correctly speaking, the Mississippi Sound, 
lying in outspread beauty before the eye and 
heaving in gentle billows under the misty light of 


24O PEN PICTURES. 

myriads of solemn stars. The distant wash of the 
waves could just be heard as they rolled in upon 
the beach. A soft, gentle wind came out from the 
sea and fanned the cheeks of a thousand people 
who were sitting in the tabernacle. The sermon 
had just been concluded, and the altar was well 
filled with penitents, and hundreds of voices were 
singing in delightful harmony the touching gospel 
hymn : 

“ I need Thee, oh I need Thee, 

Every hour I need Thee, 

O bless me now, my Savior, 

I come to Thee.” 

Dr. Walker had preached. Dr. Linus Parker, 
then editor, had briefly exhorted, and now stood 
in the altar with his eyes fixed on the audience. 
Bishop Keener, grave and noble of face, sat in the 
pulpit with that thoughtful, far-away look for which 
he is distinguished. Preachers by the score were 
scattered about here and there, singly or ingroups, 
and a solemn spirit or atmosphere rested upon all 
and over all. 

It has been over twenty years since memory 
took the picture described above, but it is as fresh 
to-day as then. There was that about the scene 
and the hour that will not let the colors fade, or 
the figures pass away. 


A PICTURE GALLERY. 


24I 


Many of the people gathered there on that 
occasion have gone above the stars that shone upon 
them then, and now look face to face upon Him of 
whom they sang at that service with loving, ador- 
ing and wishful hearts. Great also have been the 
changes among those who still remain of that audi- 
ence. But the writer never hears the hymn, “I 
need Thee every hour,” but in a moment, the 
hour, place and people are all back again. Once 
more the camp-fires are seen twinkling through the 
trees, he hears the solemn wash of the waves on 
the strand, he sees the star-lighted sea, the great 
thoughtful audience, the faces of the preachers, the 
forms bowed at the altar, while the melody of the 
hymn surges up again as fresh and tenderly beau- 
tiful as when it rolled in harmony over the Camp 
Ground, and then died away in the shadowy 
depths of the neighboring forest, on that beautiful 
summer night in the long ago. 


XXL 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 

'T'HE Picture Gallery being decidedly dusty, and 
A thereby affecting the eyes somewhat, as well 
as the feelings, we take the reader into a side room 
and show him a few portraits of certain individuals 
known by the writer in other years. 

The five we select out of many are now no 
longer on earth, but something they possessed re- 
mains, and so with loving and faithful hand we 
have made the pen to act as a kind of pencil or 
brush and have striven to put on paper as upon 
the canvas an outline anyhow of men who have 
variously impressed the writer, and whose lives 
should not be forgotten. 

We commence with Brother N . He was 

an itinerant Methodist preacher of fifty years or 
thereabouts, with iron gray hair, thin, beardless 
face, a very grave-looking countenance that rarely 
smiled, but surmounted by a pair of sharp, gray 
eyes placed close together and which at times fairly 
sparkled with mirth. 

He had such a dry way of saying witty and 
( 242 ) 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 243 

cutting things that one would have to look quickly 
from the quiet-looking face to the twinkling eyes 
to catch his meaning. 

With all this, he was one of the most powerful 
men in prayer, especially in altar work, that we 
ever heard. He had a way of reaching climaxes 
in his public supplications, and as he would make 
a culmination would bring his hands together with 
a resounding slap that seemed to drive the nail 
home and brad it on the other side. 

His great ambition was to possess a buggy, that 
he might travel his circuit with ease and comfort. 
So after much economizing here and there, he 
invested. . 

When the shining, polished vehicle was brought 
home, he felt at once a burning desire to pay a num- 
ber of pastoral calls some distance in the country. 

The very first night he stopped at a farmer’s, 
where the stable was small, and sheds were none, 
so that the buggy with its handsome, shining 
leather trimmings had to be left out in the lane, 
where at least fifty or sixty cattle were gathered. 

Brother N did not fancy this separation from 

what was evidently his pride and joy ; and that 
night he dreamed several times that his buggy was 
stolen. 


244 


PEN PICTURES. 


Next morning he walked out of the house, 
through the big gate into the lane, and lo I and 
behold ! the cattle and goats together had eaten up 
every particle of the leather of his buggy, trim- 
mings, flaps, cushion and all, and not a thing was 
left but the wood and iron, and even some of the 
wood-work was gone. The spectacle was decid- 
edly spidery to look at, not to say skeleton or ghost- 
like. 

We have heard Bro. N describe the occur- 

rence years afterward. Raising his finger and look- 
ing around at his breathless auditors, he gravely 
said. 

“ Right then and there, brethren, — I fell from 
grace ! ’ ’ 

Blessed man ! If he did fall out of grace at that 
time, he certainly fell in again. 

Today he is slumbering in a country church- 
yard under southern pines that heard his marvel- 
ous prayers and burning exhortations in days gone 
by, and that now sigh and sing in their weird voices 
above his sleeping head and scatter upon his lowly 
mound their yellow needles and brown cones as a 
kind of tribute from nature in recognition of his 
worth . 

The second portrait is that of Brother D , a 


A ROW OF PORTRAIT^. 245 

good, simple-minded, old gentleman of sixty-five 
or seventy years, when he was left a widower. 

It was supposed by all up to that time that the 
Septuagenarian’s consuming thought and main 
preparation in life was for heaven. But after a few 

weeks it became manifest that Bro. D believed 

the Scripture to the effect that it was not good for 
man to dwell alone, and that he felt he had a duty 
to discharge, and that duty was matrimony. 

If he had even then chosen a woman in the 
fifties or even forties, not much would have been 
said about his second marriage, but he sought for 
his bride among the youngest of his female acquaint- 
ances. It was truly wonderful how he brushed up, 
pulled a small wisp of gray hair over the big bald 
spot which covered three- fourths of his head, and 
tried to look young and spry. 

There were many who remembered his unctuous 
prayers and earnest sermons of other days, and 
sighed over this transformation which was making 
the man ridiculous in his old age. But none of 

these things moved Bro. D . It is questionable 

whether he noticed the pity he excited, his infatu- 
ation was so great. 

At last when he obtained the consent of a young 
woman to go through life with him, or rather to see 


PEN PICTURES. 


2 \6 

him end his, and the happy patriarch had ridden 
into the county seat for his license, he by the 
strangest mistake gave to the clerk the name of his 
son instead of his own. 

The blunder was not discovered until next day, 
when the couple were about to stand up for the 
celebration of the ceremony. At this juncture it 
was noticed by the preacher that the certificate 

had the wrong initials and that Bro. D ’s son 

and not himself had been duly authorized by the 
great commonwealth of Mississippi to marry the 
young woman then on the floor. 

Of course this was not to be thought of for a 
moment, and so all proceedings had to stop until 

Brother D could gallop back to town, fifteen 

miles away, and rectify the error. As the day was 
warm, and the whole distance to be traveled thirty 
miles*, and the road was rough, and the rider had 
been born in the beginning of the century, the task 
was no little one. And yet it was amusing to see 

Brother D ’s eager departure, his flapping 

arms and floating gray hair as he scurried down 
the road, and pitiful to behold his limp and 
exhausted appearance when he returned late 
in the day with his license all right this time, 
but looking himself as if he was better fit for the 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 


2 47 

hospital than for a marriage feast and ceremony. 

Poor old fellow ! He only lived a couple of 
years after his marriage, and was far from happy 
in those twenty-four months. Somehow the people 
have forgotten and forgiven that weakness of his 
old age, and prefer to speak of the really excellent 
life he lived before the act of folly of his last 
years. He is without doubt in heaven, where the 
Great King thoroughly understands how a blunder- 
ing head can cap and cover a truly good heart. 

The third portrait over there is that of Brother 

F , one of those young preachers who imagine 

they are called to the ministry, when everybody 
else seems to be profoundly impressed that there is 
a mistake somewhere and that the brother has an- 
swered somebody else’s call. 

The young man we speak of had a frail body, 
a pallid face, faded blue eyes, sandy hair, and a 
slow, weak, drawling way of talking. He seemed 
to lack backbone and that stuff out of which real 
men are made. He appeared to belong more to 
the opposite sex than to his own. 

He was duly sent to a circuit, but made a com- 
plete failure in every respect. His case was taken 
under consideration and it was decided best for him 
to go to college a year or so. This he did, and 


PEN PICTURES. 


248 

returning to the conference, tried an appointment 
the second time, when lo ! another failure. 

His friends then concluded he needed a course 
at a theological school and he departed again and 
spent two years. Once more he returned to the 
conference to receive a charge for the third time. 

A week beforehand he was heard to preach a 
sermon in which all that the auditor and reporter 
could remember was that the speaker made a twirl- 
ing movement of his forefinger in the air and said 
in his little, thin, die-away voice that “ the binary 
system seems to prevail in the astronomical heav- 
ens ; all the stars nearly are double.” This was 
evidently the condensed result of his arduous col- 
lege labors. 

Two weeks later he received with the rest of 
the preachers his appointment. There was a 
prompt, expeditious scattering of the brethren, on 
horseback, in buggy and on railroad train to their 
charges, whether new or old, near or remote. 

A snow storm had come up suddenly the day 
before, and this was followed by “a freeze.” The 
writer was on his horse galloping down the white 
and frozen street to reach his first appoitment, ten 
miles away in the country, when he passed on the 
corner Mrs. F , the mother of Brother F , 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS 249 

The writer stopped a moment to sahite her, and 

ask if her son had gone to his work. Her reply, 
in a, drawling, whining, die-away voice like her 
son’s, was : 

“No, Lucien slipped on the frozen snow, and 
sat down so hard that it has jarred him quite badly, 
so he went to bed.” 

“ Did he get up this morning? ” we soothingly 
inquired. 

“No indeed, he is still in bed. It does hurt 
Lucien so bad, you know, to sit down sudden on 
anything that is hard.” 

“ Poor fellow,” we said, while our ribs fairly 
ached with the effort to keep a set of mutinous 
laughs imprisoned. Te^rs, however filled our -eyes, 
and the voice choked up so that we very much fear 

that Mrs. F thought she had deeply moved us 

by her relation of her son’s indisposition. And so 
she had, but not in the way she imagined. 

This, we think, ended Brother F ’s call 

to and work in the ministry. That last jar jolted 
the idea clear out of his blessed little head that he 
could “endure hardness ” as a good soldier of 
Christ. Our impression is that he died five years 
after this from a case of measles that he ought to 
have had when he was a child. 


250 


PEN PICTURES. 


We are sure that he went to heaven. He did 
not have energy and force enough to be outbreak- 
ingly bad, even if he had preferred to enter,, upon 
such a career, The Atonement is so arranged as 
to provide for the salvation of all the children, and 
several other classes besides, that we have not time 
to mention, so we feel certain that he was saved. 

We approach the fourth portrait. 

Brother M was one of the most dignified 

men we ever met in the ministry. It is true that 
he did not possess gifts, nor had he performed 
achievements to give him the right to assume such 
an impressive and majestic air, but the demeanor 
was not taken up by reason of these things, but be- 
cause it was partly natural and mainly preferred. 
Some men sought knowledge, others cultivated 
various gifts, but Bro. M developed dignity. 

If he had been an undertaker, he would have 
made his fortune. If he had lived in Oriental 
countries, he would have been a model for the 
Sphinx, and made Job’s friends feel small indeed in 
being able to keep silent and look solemn for only 

a few days. Bro. M said nothing and looked 

dignified all the time ! It almost made one tired for 
him. The ordinary individual could not but feel 
that it was bound to be exhausting to keep the body 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 25 1 

unbent, and the facial muscles in such straight 
lines all the time. 

The children stood in awe of him, and young 
people thought he looked so grave and solemn be- 
cause he knew so much. One, from his appear- 
ance, would have supposed that when he was not 
thinking of the Bible, he was brooding on Fox’s 
Book of Martyrs, Hervey’s Meditation Among the 
Tombs, while his lightest thoughts, if allowed to 
run at all in secular channels, would be Plutarch’s 
Lives and Rollins’ Ancient History. 

This, we say, was his appearance. The reality 

was that Bro. M had never read any of these 

uninspired volumes, and often when apparently 
absorbed in thought, was really thinking about 
nothing in particular. He had learned what seemed 
to be the real' lesson of life to him, — how to look 
dignified, and now there was little else to do except 
to keep dignified and let Time roll on and the 
Judgment Day come. 

One day he was in a country church sitting on 
a bench that was pinned by large wooden pegs to 

the wall in the back of the pulpit. Bro. S , a 

fiery, demonstrative character, was preaching. 

Bro. M did not preach often, and then mainly 

delivered what are called, “Funeral Sermons.’* 


252 


PEN PICTURES. 


He was sent for, far and wide to preach such dis- 
courses over deceased grown people and children, 
and who had been dead from one week up to twenty 
years. 

On this occasion Bro. M was not preach- 
ing, but listening to Bro. S , the fervent-shout- 

ing, hand-clapping and stormy preacher of the 

community. Suddenly, as Bro. S gave a 

spring in the air and came down again with a great 
jar on the floor, not only the pulpit, but the whole 
floor of the log meeting house came down with a 
crash and fell with the entire congregation six or 

seven feet. Bro. M was sitting on the bench 

pinned to the wall, and that being the only seat 
which fell not, our grave and solemn-faced brother 
was left nine or ten feet up in midair with his back 
to the wall and his feet in space. It was a distance 
too great for him to leap, and beside, he was too 
dignified to. even think of such a thing, much less 
do it. 

Not a soul had been hurt by the accident. And 
now as the congregation, glad over its own escape, 

looked up and saw Bro. M sitting, so to 

speak, in midair like a judge, and appearing more 
dignified than ever, there was a perfect roar of 
laughter. 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 253 

The bench was narrow and the situation was 
quite unenviable. The brother refused to cast him- 
self down from the pinnacle, and the hands of the 
brethren were not sufficiently near his body for 
him to risk himself and trust to their obtaining a 
secure hold upon him as he would slip off his 
perch. Moreover, he did not care to descend that 
way. 

At last some one brought in a plank twelve 
inches wide and fifteen feet long". The upper end 
was placed on the bench where the exiled brother 
was living, and the lower end set against the tim- 
bers beneath. Bro. M was then advised to 

slide down, which he proceeded to do with un- 
abated solemnity of manner. As he came slip- 
ping rapidly down, the ungracefulness of the body, 
coupled with the attempted dignity of the face and 
demeanor, made such a remarkable contrast, that 
a number of men had to retire and roll on the grass 
outside with irrepressible mirth, and some in the 
building buried their faces in their handkerchiefs, 
appearing to be pictures of grief 'externally, but it 
was not the sound of weeping that was heard. 

And yet Bro. M was a good man and was 

beloved by many. He died years afterward at 
peace with God, and in charity with men. He 


254 


PEN PICTURES. 


was buried by a Fraternity, with a brass band 
ahead of the hearse playing a solemn dead march. 
The measured, melancholy stroke of the town 
clock can just be heard in the distance by one 
standing by the tomb of the departed one in the 
old village graveyard. We cannot but think that 
this is just as he would have had it, if he had 
stated his wishes before death. Peace to his ashes. 

We stand now in front of the fifth portrait. 

Bro. H was a simple, backwoods exhorter or 

local preacher. He was tall, gaunt, beardless, with 
peaked nose and chin, and with thin, gray hair, 
having a tendency to curl under at the ends. He 
was illiterate, had never been to school, and could 
not speak two sentences in succession correctly, 
but he was filled with the Holy Ghost. He had a 
most child-like face, and it was so sunny and 
smiling and spiritual that one forgot the homely 
countenance in the beautiful light that shone upon 
it, and cared not to criticise the ungrammatical 
speech because of the lovely, holy spirit of the man 
himself. 

Bro. H loved a camp meeting above all 

things, and fairly doted on preaching. It mattered 
little to him who preached, so Christ was talked 
about and held up, and it was simply delightful to 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 


255 


the observer to notice how the man enjoyed the 
sermon from start to finish. He kept up a low 
chuckle of enjoyment, with occasional “bless 
Gods!” and “glory to Gods,” and now and then 
the old red silk handkerchief would be raised to 
wipe away the tears that had fallen upon his 
wrinkled cheeks in response to some peculiarly 
pathetic presentation of the Cross. 

Next to the sermon he valued the Experience 
or Testimony meeting. The writer well remem- 
bers the way he described his conversion. He 
spoke of his sinful life, of living without God and 
without hope, and how one day while in his little 
cornfield the limb of a tree fell upon him. 

“ It killed me dead,” he said in all earnestness 
and honesty. Whether he failed to distinguish 
between unconsciousness and death itself, or 
whether he attributed his recovery to the power of 
God and his life as a second gift to him, we never 
asked. But we remember that he said, 

“As the folks was packin’ me to the house, I 
hyer’d the bars drap.” 

He insisted that God had to knock conviction 
and sense into him with the limb of that tree. His 
salvation came to him almost simultaneously with 
his recovery from unconsciousness. 


250 


PEN PICTURES. 


In one of the morning Testimony meetings at 

which Bro. H was present and drawing his 

usual enjoyment from all the songs and speeches, a 
pastor of one of our large city churches stood up to 
give his experience. He said that he had been a 
great sinner in his day, but God had mercy on him 
and converted him. 

“Bless God!” said Bro. H from his seat. 

“ But after this, I regret to say,” continued the 
preacher, “ I backslided.” 

Bro. H sighed audibly and shook his head 

in a most sorrowful manner from side to side. 

“ But,” resumed the city pastor, “ I was gra- 
ciously reclaimed several years after in a protracted 
meeting.” 

“Amen — Thank God !” cried out Bro. H , 

who was bending forward in breathless interest. 

“It is mortifying” said the preacher, “to have 
to confess that I backslided again after this.” 

Bro. H here groaned deeply. 

“ But I thank God,” went on the brother from 
the city, “ that I got back again.” 

“Well,” cried out Bro. H with his face 

lifted up full of deep concern, “I hope you stuck 
that time.” 

The burst of laughter that followed this sally is 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 


2 57 


one of the unfading memories of that camp ground. 

Bro. H through poverty, could not always 

command the money to pay his railroad fare to 
this annual meeting, and so one year a minister 
carried him in his buggy a couple of hundred miles 
through southern Mississippi to the place. He 
said afterwards a more devout man he never was 
thrown with in his life ; that he was as unaffected as 
a child, and his spiritual life was as fresh and fra- 
grant as the beautiful pine forests through which 
they drove to reach the sea shore. 

Every half hour or so this simple-minded lover 
of the Lord would say, 

“Brother L , please sir, lemme outen the 

buggy a minute to have er little' secret pra’r 
with the Lord.” 

Bro. L in response would turn the wheel 

of the vehicle, and Bro. H would dive into 

a thicket, or get behind some great pine trees 
twenty yards or more away, and then relig- 
ious services would open. Bro. H ’s “secret 

pra’r ” could be heard several hundred yards 
away. 

In a few minutes this love-sick servant of God 
would come tramping back through the under- 
brush with his face all aglow and looking marvel- 


PEN PICTURES. 


258 

ously refreshed. This was kept up during the 
entire trip of five days. 

Moreover, if Bro. H stopped at a farm 

house to ask for a drink of water, after giving the 
gourd or dipper back to the person who had 
handed him the drink, he would say to the indi- 
vidual, whether man or woman, and always so 
humbly and lovingly that they were never offended, 

“And now, brother (or sister), let us kneel 
down and have a little pra’r with the Lord.” 
And down they would all go together on their 
knees on the gallery. 

Just after one of those regular and frequent 

requests of Bro. H to have a little secret 

prayer in the woods, and had returned chuckling 

with joy and his face beaming, Bro. L turned 

to him and said, 

“Bro. H , if God was not the most long- 

suffering being in the universe, you would run 
Him distracted, for you are always after Him.” 

In due time, allowing for all Bro. H *s 

stops on the way, the two preachers reached the 
Camp Ground. Services had been going on two 

days already, but Bro. L announced in the 

Testimony meeting that he had not lost anything, 
but was really ahead of the crowd before him, for 


A ROW OF PORTRAITS. 259 

he had been in a camp meeting for five days, held 

in a buggy, and led by Bro. H . 

The saintly man has been asleep in the piney 
woods of Mississippi for a quarter of a century. 
It is very sweet to think that he who sought so dili- 
gently to get near and still nearer to the Crucified 
has been all these years basking and rejoicing in 
the actual presence of the Redeemer whom he 
loved so well. 


XXII. 


OLD JACK. 

H^HERE are many ways of making a living in 
this world, and it is fortunate, doubtless, that it 
is so. We have been made to wonder many times 
as we stumbled upon methods and plans of keeping 
soul and body together, and that had been dignified 
by the name of business. Time would fail to enu- 
merate the small callings and employments that 
flourish on street corners, back alleys, remote 
rooms, damp cellars and lofty garrets. 

Among the perambulating professions and trades 
of the street is that of the Dog Catcher. The busi- 
ness of this interesting individual in a large city is 
to capture during certain seasons of the year all 
stray dogs that are collarless and unlicensed. The 
arrest is effected by a piece of wire with a running 
noose flung skillfully over the head of the unfor- 
tunate animal, and then the struggling, yelping, 
howling victim is first choked into silence and next 
flung through a kind of trap door into a cage fas- 
tened to the body of a light wheeled wagon. The 
captors then spring upon the driver’s box, crack 
( 260 ) 


OLD JACK. 


26l 


their whip and drive rapidly away down the street, 
pursued by yells, cries, groans and sometimes oaths 
of grown people, and almost invariably by the 
screams, wails and lamentations of children to 
whom the dog belonged or was well and favorably 
known. 

The Dog Pound is generally several miles 
away on the edge of the city. Here the captive 
is kept three days, awaiting the redemption of 
his owner. During these three days, just as men 
condemned to death are fed bountifully before 
execution, so these confined animals have a like 
kindness extended to them. On the third day, how- 
ever, if no one appears to claim and pay the fine 
and license, the doomed creature is put to death. 

It is a notable sight to seethe collection of good 
and bad looking dogs gathered in this place. Every 
breed is represented in these rooms of confinement ; 
curs, spaniels, setters, terriers, with now and then a 
mastiff or a noble looking Newfoundland. Some of 
them are evidently pets and highly cared for, but 
others have a neglected, woe-begone appearance 
and look like they were accustomed to pick 
up a scant living in back alleys and spend their 
lives in avoiding flying brickbats and scalding 


water. 


262 


PEN PICTURES. 


While a bounty, so to speak, is on the heads 
of all canines in the summer months, yet the Dog 
Catcher prefers the capture of the yard and 
household pets for reasons too apparent to mention. 
Not allowed by law to invade the premises for his 
prey, he is permitted on the other hand to swoop 
down upon and fling into his wagon cage any one 
he finds on the street without a collar, no matter 
how handsome, dignified and valuable such an ani- 
mal may be. 

Hence to carry on his business successfully, the 
Dog Catcher does not herald his approach with 
clarion notes like the “Charcoal Man,” or with 
the ringing bell of the “Scissors Grinder,” but 
driving up rapidly to a corner, his two assistants 
leap from the wagon, and in a single minute’s 
time the meditative cur in the middle of the 
street, and the gazing house dog just outside 
the protecting yard gate on the pavement find 
themselves suddenly lassoed, and in far less time 
than it takes to tell it, their terrified howls are 
throttled, and choking and struggling in stal- 
wart hands they are lifted from their feet and 
flung into the cage. In another instant the lasso- 
ers leap upon the wagon, the driver gives the fleet 
horse a sharp blow, and away they disappear 


OLD JACK. 263 

down the street in a cloud of dust amid the shrieks 
and cries of children, loud disapproving tones of 
men, and vociferous explanations of the suddenly 
assembled street crowd to questions put from open- 
ing doors and windows and passing pedestrians. A 
few minutes more and the groups scatter, men 
pursue their way, and all that is left of the excite- 
ment are conversations held in neighboring houses 
about it, and the bitter weeping of children whose 
Rover or Fido has been taken away from them, 
sometimes for a day, and oftentimes forever. 

Thus it is evident to the reader that of all call- 
ings there are few more detested and condemned 
than that of the Dog Catcher. The children re- 
gard him as their born enemy, and even many 
grown folks can not bear him. So when in some 
early morning hour a sudden yelping and howling 
on the street is quickly followed by a choking, 
strangling cry, like an electric flash the whole 
thing is understood by the neighborhood, and the 
cry “ Dog Catcher ! ” arises from every lip and is 
heard in every tone of pain and disgust. Then 
follows an uproar on the street, loud cries of pro- 
test, some brutal laughs, wails and weeping, a rat- 
tle of retiring wheels, and then all is over. Repeat- 
edly we have seen our breakfast table circle of 


264 


PEN PICTURES. 


eight completely disappear from the dining room 
by that single thrilling cry on the street, “Dog 
Catcher !” 

Somebody, we suppose, must fill this position, 
as there must also be a hangman, but he who has 
witnessed a single scene of this kind, caught a 
glimpse of the choking dogs, heard the sobbing 
and shrieking children, beheld the troubled faces 
of women at the windows, and angry looking coun- 
tenances of men on the pavement, would certainly 
never turn to such an occupation for its popularity 
or any delight that could arise from such a means 
of livelihood. 

Hence it is that a mishap or misfortune of 
any kind to a Dog Catcher is always received with 
hearty laughs, and cordial smiles of approval by 
many. Even more, there have been cases where 
men would not willingly consent to the departure 
of the old homestead friend, and so fisticuffs would 
follow of so fervent and forcible a nature that the 
canine captor and his helpers would be glad to beat 
a retreat. 

Only a few blocks from our home, a couple of 
indignant citizens had pitched into the lassoers 
of their property in so hearty a fashion that the 
driver had to come to their assistance. Meantime, 


OLD JACK. 


265 

while they were all engaged in a face-mauling and 
nose-swelling struggle, another citizen slipped up 
to the wagon, opened the cage door, and such 
another scampering out and scattering away of 
animals was never seen before since the Ark landed 
on Mt. Ararat. The dogs came out so rapidly that 
it actually looked like one long dog of thirty or 
forty feet in length. This moving line instantly 
broke up, however, into living sections of individ- 
ual curs, spaniels, setters and terriers, all heading 
in different directions. The Dog Catchers promptly 
left their antagonists to take after the escaped prey, 
but the earth seemed in a friendly and mysterious 
way to open up for the flying animals, while equally 
sympathetic store doors did the same, and the whole 
street was in a broad grin as well as a hilarious 
guffaw over the discomfiture of their adversaries. 

The first time I ever heard the cry and uproar 
on the street declaring what was happening, I had 
just time to catch through the window a vanishing 
glimpse of the flying wagon with three men on the 
seat applying the lash to the horse, while a group 
of people, some red-faced and excited, were shak- 
ing their heads and talking in loud tones about the 
occurrence. 

Another morning I was more expeditious on 


266 


PEN PICTURES. 


hearing the yelp, howl, curse, and cry, “ Dog 
Catcher!” mingled with screams of children on 
the street. I sprang to the window and saw two 
men with the wire lassoes drawing two struggling 
dogs into a standing position, before lifting and 
hurling them into the wagon. One was a snow 
white setter and the other a beautiful black spaniel, 
the last being the property of the family next door, 
and one whose faithfulness to his owners 1 
had observed. In a moment’s time the iron loop 
was loosened, and the white setter was lifted up 
and disappeared like a flash through the trap door. 
In another instant the spaniel with a pitiful cry 
also vanished in the cage. In a third second the 
three men were on the seat applying the whip to 
the horse, and in a trice the wagon swept out of 
sight around a distant corner. 

It would be hard to describe the sensations of 
mind and heart just after one of these scenes. The 
helplessness of the animal, its friendlessness, the 
refusal or neglect in the vast majority of instances 
on the part of families to redeem the poor creatures, 
the vision of the animals’ coming death on the 
third day, all this, with the appearance of anxious, 
troubled faces on the street and crying children in 
the yard, necessarily makes a deep impression. 


OLD JACK. 


267 

On the morning just referred to we sent over 
promptly to the neighbor and informed her of the 
fate of her spaniel, and received the sickening reply 
that she knew it and did not care, that she was tired 
of him. 

We recalled that a number of times we had seen 
the family go out to parks in the day and amuse- 
ment halls at night, and leave the dog on guard. 
And faithfully he discharged his duty. For hours 
at a time we had seen him refuse to stir from his 
post of watchful defense, no matter what was tran- 
spiring on the street. And whenever they would 
return he always seemed so glad. And yet they 
said they were w'eary of him, and so signed the 
sentence of his death. 

Meanwhile we did a little ciphering on a strange 
kind of problem, in which we added some valuable 
figures to brute life, and substracted others from 
certain persons we knew, called human beings ; 
and so as the calculation proceeded, the dog seemed 
to get the advantage. 

All this talk about the Dog Catcher is prepara- 
tory to the following occurrence. 

* * * * 

Old Jack, a large and dignified looking dog, 
with a white body and several large brown spots, 


268 


PEN PICTURES. 


made his first appearance in our yard very much as 
if he had dropped from the clouds. He was not 
seen to enter the front or back gate, but was first 
noticed standing amid the playing children, regard- 
ing their frolics with a kind and patronizing air. 

The little ones were only too delighted to receive 
him as a kind of heavenly gift, and so in a few days 
a very great attachment sprang up between the 
younger members of the family and the grave look- 
ing canine. 

He was speedily found to be thoroughly trained 
although evidently now in a superannuated 
condition. His obedience was perfect, and his 
fondness of and gentleness to' the children un- 
changeable. How they rolled and tumbled over 
him, while our little boy occasionally bestrode the 
broad, strong back of the big fellow, who walked 
off with him without the least inconvenience. 

To the great grief of the little ones, one morn- 
ing two boys put in an appearance and filed an en- 
ergetic property claim upon “Old Jack,” as he 
was now called. Their sorrow as the dog was 
being led away brought out a gentleman of the 
household, who found out in a few moments’ con- 
versation with the lads that they were perfectly 
willing to part with Jack for a moneyed consider- 


OLD JACK. 


269 

ation. They were begged to state the amount at 
which they held him, and for which they would 
dispose of him, and the figure was so small that the 
writer has no idea of mentioning it lest it seem to 
reflect upon our old friend’s worth and attain- 
ments. The price was paid down to them in the 
presence of witnesses, and the two young mer- 
chants gave a verbal quitclaim to Jack, his person, 
accomplishments, increasing years, approaching 
decrepitude and all, forever. 

After this Jack became quite a privileged char- 
acter, coming in and out as he pleased, and pre- 
ferring always to be admitted at the front door. 
We are quite sure that he enjoyed the door being 
opened to him by a servant, as if he was on the 
best social and visiting plane with the family. He 
became a decided ornament to the house as he 
stretched his great white and brown body on the 
marble steps at the front door, and there slumbered 
for hours in the sunshine. 

One of his recreations was to leave the house 
a half hour before breakfast, proceed down Wash- 
ington Avenue for a block, turn up toward Lucas 
Avenue, and be gone just about thirty minutes, 
returning promptly in time for the morning meal. 
This regular visit inspired considerable curiosity 


270 


PEN PICTURES. 


in our minds, but we had such confidence in Jack’s 
character and habits that we never insulted him by 
putting a detective watch on him. We rather sus- 
pected, however, that he had an acquaintance in 
the neighborhood, a purely Platonic affection 
however, for the dog’s honest look on fiis return 
showed that wherever he had been, he had con- 
ducted himself like a gentleman. 

Another occupation of Jack was to watch the 
children play in the grassy side yard, or walk se- 
dately, but observantly up and down the pavement 
in front of the house, as they flashed past him 
with merry shouts on bicycles, velocipedes and 
wagons, finally concluding the evening sports with 
a game of “ I Spy ” while the electric lights flick- 
ered upon them through the rustling leaves of the 
shade trees that lined both sides of the street of 
our block. 

Old Jack wonderfully enjoyed it all, and gave 
the whole laughing, romping scene his unqualified 
approval, though always in a dignified and superior 
way. Sometimes he would become so interested 
that he would stand up and gaze after them. Num- 
bers of times he would run with them, but usually 
he would lie on the broad step of the front door, 
with his head resting on his fore paws, while his 


OLD JACK. 


271 


eyes rested watchfully and unweariedly upon the 
children. Several times I am sure that I caught 
him smiling. But I may be mistaken here, for 
Jack was a very grave dog. 

Strange to say, with all this family attachment 
to the gentle and faithful animal, his license had 
never been attended to and the consequent dog 
collar attached. 

One morning while the family were rising from 
bed and preparing their toilets for breakfast, a 
great commotion was heard in the street, the howls, 
yelps, and choking of dogs, the confused murmur 
of voices, and the old cry : 

“ Dog Catcher ! ” 

Instantly some one of the household ran to 
the window in time to see a beautiful spaniel 
hurled into the iron cage. Then suddenly remem- 
bering Jack and his habit of taking that early 
morning stroll, she flew to another window to be- 
hold faithful Old Jack in the clutches of one of the 
Dog Catchers, who was dragging him with diffi- 
culty to the wagon, on account of the great size 
of the dog. He had been captured just outside 
the gate. 

The children, now attracted to the window, at 
the sight of this harrowing spectacle set up cries, 


272 


PEN PICTURES. 


shrieks and lamentations most pitiful to hear. A 
member of the family ran down to the side yard 
gate to head off the Dog Catcher and pay the fine, 
on the spot, and so redeem Jack, but the gate was 
padlocked and she could not make herself heard 
or seen on account of the high plank fence. Has- 
tening to the front gate, she reached it just in time 
to see poor Old Jack flung by two powerful men 
into the cage, hear the doon slam, and behold the 
wagon drive off with a rush and whir. 

There was little breakfast eaten that morning 
by the home circle, while sorrow, indignation, 
tears, excited remarks and solemn invocations upon 
the heads of all Dog Catchers abounded. 

We never knew how many friends Jack had in 
the neighborhood until the news of his capture 
was flashed by servant and children telegraph lines 
into the various homes round about. Messages 
and offers of assistance soon arrived, the door bell 
was rung repeatedly, and a number of callers 
dropped in to ask about the matter. 

Of course the family lost no time in recovering 
Jack. A gentleman friend offered his buggy, 
and person as well, and late in the afternoon 
dashed out several miles to the Dog Pound. 

He found Jack walking around sedately among 


OLD JACK. 


273 


his doomed and less fortunate companions, as 
though no disrespect had ever been shown him, 
and death was not only a few hours off if he was 
not claimed and redeemed. He had seen our 
friend before, and appeared to recognize him in- 
stantly, with a look which seemed to say, “I 
thought you would come for me.” 

At the gentleman’s invitation Jack clambered in 
his grave way into the buggy, and as there was 
no room in front, took his position on one of the 
two seats of the vehicle. Being a well-trained 
dog, he did this easily and naturally, but sitting 
erect as he did, his great size brought his head 
fully a foot higher than that of the gentleman who 
drove the buggy at his side. 

It made such a social equality spectacle, and 
Old Jack looked so dignified through it all, that 
as they sped along, down through streets, avenues 
and boulevards, there was a ripple of smiles and 
waves of laughter on either side that made one 
think of the wake that follows a passing vessel. 

And so this was the way they drove through 
the city to the anxious, expectant household. The 
gentleman had a kind, but somewhat embarrassed 
facial expression, while Jack adhered to his usual 
solemn appearance, with a slightly confused look 


274 


PEN PICTURES. 


hard to describe, but which, mindful of his past 
record, his weight of years, and his elevated po- 
sition in the buggy, he kept well under. 

What a welcome he received when the buggy 
was first sighted up the street and swept with a 
clatter up to the door. It was an ovation ! The 
children had been watching for him from the gate 
and upper windows for two hours. So with the 
cry, “Yonder he comes!” the whole house most 
directly concerned and other homes nearby were 
emptied on the street. Everybody wanted to help 
Jack out. The grown people all patted him, while 
the children hugged him and called him by every 
pet name in the calendar of love. 

While the hour was late and the electric lights 
had been tessellating the street and pavement with 
flickering shadows for an hour, yet the children 
were granted permission to take a few runs with 
Jack up and down the pavement, and their merry 
cries and Jack’s occasional deep bark of satisfac- 
tion put a warm, tender feeling in the hearts of all 
the grown folks, who were standing on the steps or 
leaning against the gate, and beholding with smil- 
ing faces and yet moistened eyes the happy scene. 

It was well for the Dog Catcher that he was not 
there. Not that anyone would have offered \im 


OLD JACK. 275 

personal violence, but he could not have survived 
the sight of the happiness of that hour. Then the 
popularity of Jack, the rising stock of the dog, and 
the constantly sinking value of his own employ- 
ment in the estimation of everybody around, 
would have been more than he could have 
endured. 

As for the family, which had passed through 
such a history that day, they lost no time in secur- 
ing a license at once and the attendant collar for 
Jack’s neck. 

As for Jack, good, faithful old fellow, general 
inspector, patronizer and sharer of the children’s 
sports, he seemed pleased with his throat ornament 
and walked the pavements, crossed the streets and 
paid his morning calls around the corner seemingly 
without a thrill of fear. The collar stood for a 
license, and the license represented the protection 
of a great government. So that all the armies and 
navies of the United States were really back of 
Jack as he walked around, and all were pledged 
to shield his person, and guard his life, so long as 
like other American citizens he behaved himself. 
Thus escorted, so to speak, and thus wonderfully 
defended, Jack was free to go down the evening 
slope of life in full pursuit of knowledge, pleasure 


276 PEN pictures. 

and happiness, his bed and board costing him 
nothing at our house. 

I do not know that Jack knew of this license, 
but the family did, and it made us in a measure 
sublimely indifferent to the presence and even being 
of a Dog Catcher. Sometimes we had impressions 
that Jack had an inkling of what had taken place 
for his security, for he certainly looked bolder and 
paid no attention whatever to suspicious looking 
wagons rattling noisily by. We must confess, 
however, that if he did know these things he 
never said anything about the matter, Still it is 
to be remembered that dogs know a great deal 
more than they tell to people. 

As for the Dog Catcher, canine destroyer, house- 
hold pet stealer, and children heart breaker, what 
shall we say, but that all the little ones we have 
talked to on the subject believe there is no hope 
for his salvation so long as he holds to such an 
occupation. Quite a number are convinced that 
already he is beyond the pale of mercy, and no 
matter whether he stops or continues his business, 
he can never be saved. Concerning these moral, 
psychological and eschatological features of the 
case we can not speak at this time. Perhaps it is well 
for the Dog Catcher that I should not do so at this 


OLD JACK. 


277 


very moment, for I have just returned from the 
window, where I beheld our little ones and Jack 
rolling on the grass together, engaged in one of 
their fascinating romps, with happy laughs and 
good natured barks indescribably intermingled, 
and not a solitary care resting upon a single heart 
of the deeply absorbed group. 

* * * * 

Three years have passed since we penned the 
lines above. Faithful, dignified old Jack, after in- 
creasing feebleness, fell asleep one night in the 
cellar to awake no more. He went down to his 
grave full of years and honor, regretted by a large 
number of acquaintances and friends and deeply 
lamented by the family circle of which he had 
come to regard himself as a member. 

We doubt not that certain persons of that fam- 
ily most heartily wish that Wesley’s idea of the 
Resurrection of animals may be true, and we know 
there are one or two of that household that no mat- 
ter what may be the beauty and attraction of the 
New Jerusalem, would love to take the children, 
and accompanied by Jack, have a long, sweet stroll 
over the green fields of Eden together. 
























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